India to buy maritime reconnaissance aircraft

Moscow, Jun 21: India plans to buy eight maritime reconnaissance aircraft in a year from among the five or six bidders, including Airbus, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Ilyushin, Navy Chief Admiral Arun Prakash said.

''It is going to take some time. Every aircraft will have to be separately evaluated and compared from technical and price points of view. Of all the equal aircraft, we will buy the cheapest one,'' Admiral Prakash said after holding talks here with senior military and defence industry officials.

''It will take about a year to acquire these maritime reconnaissance planes,'' he said, adding that India was not in the market for IL-38 spy planes and Ilyushin would possibly be one of the bidders.

Admiral Prakash, who started his five-day visit from Monday here, held talks on ongoing defence projects with the Russian Navy Chief Admiral Vladimir Masorin, Chief of the General Staff of Russian Armed Forces General Yuri Baluyevsky and Russian Air Force Chief Vladimir Mikhailov.

He also visited all the plants and centres of the MiG which is building MiG-29K fighters for heavy aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov, currently being upgraded at Severdovinsk shipyard.

Yesterday, Admiral Prakash flew with a Russian test-pilot on the MiG-29 fighter, ''very close'' to the fighter which would be deployed on Admiral Gorshkov.

''It was a very good, very capable aircraft with fly-by-air system,'' Admiral Prakash noted saying everything was going according to the plan for MiG-29K.

He said that Indian Navy currently had five IL-38s which are being modernised in Russia.

Two of them, were already returned to India and only three remained in Russia, Admiral Prakash said that discussions were on with the Ilyushin Bureau to remove the difficulties.

During his stay in Russia, Admiral Prakash will travel to St Petersburg, Severodvinsk to see the progress of work on Admiral Gorshkov and on an Indian submarine undergoing modernisation.

While in Vladivostok, he would discuss with the Russian Pacific Fleet chief the Indo-Russian joint military manoeuvre ''Indra-2007''.

The joint exercise would be held to create interoperability between the two navies in order to be able to coordinate work in natural disasters such Tsunami earthquakes.

On acquisition of additional advanced frigates, he said talks were already over and now the contract was awaited to be signed soon.

UNI