TSAMTO, February 25. Boeing has announced the transfer to the Indian Navy of the 12th aircraft BPA P-8I "Neptune" (Indian version of the American P-8A "Poseidon").
The P-8I is the fourth and last aircraft transferred in accordance with the realized option for the supply of four additional aircraft of the BPA Poseidon.
The P-8I are designed for information gathering, surveillance and reconnaissance at sea, anti-submarine warfare, support operations to assist victims of emergencies and humanitarian missions.
The Indian Navy is the first export customer and the largest operator of the P-8 outside the United States. The aircraft have also been adopted by the US Navy, the Australian Air Force, Norway and the UK. In addition, the P-8 was ordered by the Air Forces of the Republic of Korea (6 units), New Zealand (4 units) and Germany (5 units).
As reported by TSAMTO, the basic contract worth about $ 2.1 billion, providing for the supply of eight P-8I "Neptune" aircraft and auxiliary equipment, was signed by the Government of India in January 2009. To date, all 8 P-8Is of the first batch have been delivered, are based at the Rajali Airbase (Arakonam, pcs.Tamil Nadu) and have been used since 2013.
In July 2016, the Indian Defense Ministry exercised an option to supply four additional P-8I "Neptune" worth $1.1 billion. The first of these aircraft landed at the Khanza base of the Indian Navy on November 18, 2020.
At the moment, the total flight time of the Indian P-8I exceeds 35 thousand flight hours.
In April 2021, the US State Department approved the potential supply to India under the Foreign Military Sales program of 6 more P-8I Poseidon base patrol aircraft, as well as related equipment and services. The total cost of the sale may amount to $2.42 billion.
According to Boeing, the company is currently completing the construction of a Training and Data Processing Support Center based on Rajali (Arakkonam, pcs.Tamil Nadu) and an auxiliary center at the Naval Institute of Aviation Technology (Kochi) under a training and support contract signed in 2019. Training on the territory of India will allow Navy crews to improve their flight skills in a shorter time and reduce training time.
