Welcome back to India Defence Online...If you haven't done so yet, subscribe to the RSS feed as it will save you a lot of time. Thanks for following the site!
India Defence Online, New Delhi — The Indian Navy continues to suffer delays in acquiring multi-role helicopters (MRH) as bids from international manufacturers have expired. The Indian Defence Ministry has indicated that the commercial bids from US firm Sikorsky and British-Italian firm Agusta Westland for the MRH have expired last month.
The Request for Proposal (RFP) for the 16 MRH worth $1 billion was issued in August 2008 and since the commercial bids are valid for two years only, they stand expired. The Indian Defence Ministry now intends to request the firms to revise their offers. While the technical evaluation has been wrapped up, Indian Navy is yet to pursue the Flight Evaluation Trials for the two contenders.
The two contenders for the MRH for the Indian Navy are the US firm Sikorsky’s S-70B Sea Hawk and British-Italian Agusta Westland’s NH-90 helicopters. Once the contract is decided and awarded, the Indian Navy would get the delivery of the MRH within 46 months in three phases and the RFP provides an option of placing follow-on orders for another 44 helicopters.
The MRH aims to replace the ageing fleet of Sea King choppers with the Indian Navy. The MRH’s main role would be anti-submarine warfare and anti-surface warfare while its other role would include anti-ship surveillance and targeting, search and rescue, cargo carrying and casualty evacuation. The MRH will be equipped for in-flight refuelling and will coordinate logistics missions from naval vessels.
While the US firm Sikorsky is offering the S-70B Seahawk as a commercial direct sale, there is another option for India which is the MH-60R chopper as a Foreign Military Sale (FMS) under the U.S. Defence Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA). The American Department of Defence has offered the US Navy’s workhorse MH-60R, which is a Sikorsky platform with American systems and sensors, through the FMS route.
Indian defence news and strategic intelligence
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
