A burgeoning relationship between India and the USA is improving Boeing’s optimism about selling its F/A-18E/F Super Hornet to New Delhi as a replacement for its MiG-21 fleet.
Traditionally, India has looked to Russia or France for major purchases of military aircraft. However, as Mark Kronenberg, vice-president Asia-Pacific for Boeing Integrated Defense Systems business development said at the show yesterday, the growing links between the two nations’ armed forces “has really opened up some doors for us that weren’t there two years ago.
“One of the US defence attachés back in the 1990s said that the biggest thing he had to do was co-ordinate the schedules of the two countries’ military bands. From that, they’ve gone to participating in 30 major exercises [with the US] in the past two years.”
Kronenberg puts this down to several factors, including growing awareness of the need to protect Indian Ocean sea lanes and the considerable co-operation between the two nations’ armed forces in the aftermath of the December 2004 tsunami.
Elsewhere in the region, Boeing has supplied Super Hornet pricing information to Malaysia and discussions have been held “from time to time”, but Boeing is basically awaiting Malaysia to respond on pricing and offset matters. Thailand, which ordered earlier versions of the Hornet in the 1990s, only to cancel the order in the 1997 Asian financial crisis, remains a more distant prospect: “We may use the show to see what sort of interest there is in that.”
On the airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) front, meanwhile, Boeing Australia is outfitting its first 737-based Wedgetail at the Royal Australian Air Force base at Amberley, Queensland. The first two aircraft from the six-strong order were outfitted at Seattle. Initial operational capability for the type will be July 2007, with all six aircraft to be delivered by 2008.
Source: Flight Daily News
