‘God of the Seas’
The Indian Navy’s LRMRASW force
The Indian Navy’s long range maritime reconnaissance antisubmarine warfare (LRMRASW) force operates arguably the world’s most advanced aircraft, the Boeing P-8I, the Indian variant of the US Navy’s Poseidon, named after the Greek God of the Seas. Featuring various Indian-origin systems, the P-8Is of INAS 312 have truly given the Indian Navy’s air arm an international stature.
Named by the US Navy, as Poseidon (‘God of the Seas’ as per Greek mythology) the Boeing P-8 was selected by the Government of India to fulfill the Navy’s long range maritime reconnaissance and anti-submarine warfare aircraft (LRMRASW) requirement. The Indian Navy had for several years till then been operating large, Russian-origin Tupolev Tu-142M (NATO Bear-Foxtrot) and Ilyushin Il-38SD Sea Dragons in this role but clearly with mounting serviceability issues, their urgent replacement was sought. The ‘acceptance of necessity’ (AON) was accorded by the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) in September 2005 and requests for proposal were issued in December 2005 to a number of OEMs. Responses were received from five companies in April 2006 and thereafter evaluated by a technical evaluation committee. Both the Boeing P-8 (based on the commercial Boeing 737 airliner) and EADS-CASA derivative of the
Airbus A319 airliner were down selected and the Boeing variant finally chosen in December 2006.
As per the official statement “the Government of India has selected Boeing IDS to provide eight P- 8I long- range maritime reconnaissance and antisubmarine warfare aircraft to the Indian Navy. The P-8I is a variant of the P-8A Poseidon that Boeing is developing for the US Navy and India is the first international customer for the P-8. Boeing will deliver the first P-8I within 48 months of the contract signing, the remaining seven by 2015”.
The President of Boeing Integrated Defence Systems ( IDS) reinforced that decision: “This aircraft will provide outstanding capabilities tailored to India’s unique maritime-patrol requirements…. the aircraft will bring the Indian Navy advanced technology that is unmatched in maritime reconnaissance aircraft, and the reach and capability it needs to defend India’s maritime interests.” The P-8I was described as being “a true multi-mission maritime patrol aircraft (MPA) that features greater flexibility and a broader range of capabilities than aircraft currently in service…can operate effectively over land or water while performing antisubmarine warfare missions; search and rescue; maritime interdiction; long-range intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance”.
Following detailed and comprehensive negotiations, on 1 January 2009 the Government of India formalised the contract for eight Boeing P- 8I aircraft with the Company as also approved infrastructural augmentation at their intended base, INS
Rajali, at Arakonam in Tamilnadu. Indian Naval teams were thereafter seconded to Boeing facilities at Seattle on the north western Pacific coast of the United States for contract management, even as the Navy selected personnel, both pilots and observers for operational conversion training.
Five batches, each comprising two pilots, five observers and two technical sailors, making a total of 35 Indian Naval personnel, were given operational training on the Boeing P-8I at Seattle beginning from late 2012 till October 2013, with time on type-simulators plus 20 hours in-flight. The squadron commander designate was Captain HS Jhajj, the other pilots being Cdr VS Ranganathan, Cdr Savio Rodrigues, Cdr VS Barve, Cdr Vivek Chandahas, Cdr Amit Mohapatra, Lt Cdr AK Singh, Lt Cdr Ajay Kanwar, Lt Cdr Shobhit Mittal and Lt Cdr Kashyap Srinivasan. The pilots were from varied flying backgrounds, having flown Tupolev Tu-142Ms, Ilyushin Il-38SDs and Dornier 228s.
The 25 Observers included Commanders V Ramraj, Sudeep N, Ravi Kumar and Ravikant Pandey and there were 3 lady officers including Lieutenant Ambica Hooda, Lieutenant Seema Rani Sharma and Lieutenant Aruna Bhardawaj, the last batch completing their training in August 2013.
Meanwhile, the Indian Navy’s P-8Is, resplendent in their new colours and sporting the initials ‘ARK’ (for Arakkonam) on their tails, had completed ‘shake down flights’ in the Seattle area of north western United States and began their ferry flights to India, the first aircraft arriving in Arakkonam in May 2013, with the eighth and last landing in October 2015. The P-8Is were to share this sprawling Naval Air Station with the Tupolev Tu-142Ms of INAS 312 ‘Albatross’, themselves being formed into INAS 312A (‘ 312- Alpha’) although INS Rajali still had limited infrastructure for the P-8s with most of the planned improvement still underway.
Plans had called for all eight aircraft to be housed in dedicated hangars, a concept new to the base since the eight Tupolevs of INAS 312 had spent the entirety of their service lives parked out in the open. There were delays on infrastructure development at Arakkonam perhaps because of its somewhat remote location, far from urban centres and therefore from competent engineering and construction resources.
However, the key advantage inherent to the Boeing P-8I was that it was based on the highly successful, massively-produced Boeing 737 commercial airliner, endowing it with high reliability and an extremely small logistical footprint, particularly in contrast to the Soviet-era aircraft that it was replacing. Compared to the Tu-142M, the P-8I has a slightly reduced endurance of around 9-10 hours, but managed this with a mere 32 tonnes of fuel as against the gargantuan 85 tonnes required by the Tupolevs for the same mission.
The P-8l is in fact a heavily modified 737- 800, and could easily be mistaken for its civilian cousin from a distance. Upon closer examination, however, the differences are more readily apparent. The 737-800 fuselage is strengthened and mated to wings derived from the 737-900, these wings featuring two key modifications : sleek raked wingtips instead of the winglets typically seen on commercial 737 variants, and hardpoints for AGM- 84 Harpoon anti-ship missiles, two under each wing, just outboard of the engines. The powerplants themselves are relatively unchanged, but the increased electrical power requirements for onboard systems required the CFM 567B turbofans to be encased in redesigned nacelles with bulges to accommodate larger l80kVA generators.
A combined weather/ search radar, Raytheon’s AN/APY-10(I), is housed in the nose of the aircraft, and complemented by a Telephonics APS-143C(V)3 multimode radar (MMR) housed under the fuselage just aft of the landing gear. The AN/ APY-10(I) is a variant made specifically for the P-8I and incorporates an air-to-air
mode, allowing detection of threats in the air as well as at sea. It also includes an interleaved weather and surface search capability to provide the flight deck with accurate weather avoidance information while allowing sensor operators in the cabin to perform surveillance tasks. The APS-l43C(V)3 is more mission-specific to the LRMR role, featuring a multitude of modes geared toward maritime operations.
In addition to the radar, the aircraft has a retractable L3 Wescam MX-20HD electro- optical/ infra- red ( EO/ IR) turret installed forward of the wing, along with a magnetic anomaly detector in a short boom near the APU exhaust. A full ESM/ELINT suite is incorporated, as are a number of Indian-developed systems such as a BELdeveloped datalink and IFF interrogator, weapons bay doors and tailcones from HAL, as also APU door fairings and radomes from Tatas.
Personnel requirements were similar to the Tu-142, with a typical mission involving 9-10 crew members, but some archaic posts such as the flight signaller and navigator were dispensed with, providing the P-8I with more mission operators to focus on the sensors. There are only two flight technicians, whose primary role is loading the internal rotary sonobuoy launchers.
Crew training was initially conducted in the USA, but as more experience was gained, this moved entirely to India and conducted in manner similar to the other maritime reconnaissance squadrons.
The first batch of ten pilots selected for P-8I conversion comprised four former 1l-38 pilots, four from the Tu-142M fleet, and two Dornier 228 pilots. Similarly, all mission operators had prior experience in their role before conducting their conversion. There were no simulators in-country and while the terms of the contract with Boeing did not cover simulator construction in India, the Navy was exploring options for flying training of P-8I crews that would either see it build and operate a simulator at INS Rajali itself, or utilise commercial simulators to take advantage of the P-8I’s commonality with the Boeing 737 airliner.
On board the aircraft, once again in stark contrast to the Tu-142Ms, the P-8I provides an unparalleled level of comfort to its crew. There are extra seats to accommodate additional crewmembers, reducing individual workloads if necessary, and toilet and galley facilities similar to those found on commercial airliners, which makes them a world apart from the rather simian amenities offered by the two Russian MR aircraft types operated by the Indian Navy. The ability of the P-8I to attack underwater targets on ASW missions remains relatively unchanged when compared to the Tu-142M, though the Boeing aircraft carries two more torpedoes than the Tupolev. The true ‘game changer’ certainly is the AGM-84 Harpoon with
ability of the P-8I to autonomously detect, track and prosecute surface targets. While this capability also exists for the upgraded Il-38SD aircraft based at Goa, induction of the P-8I marked the first time that any of the Arakkonam-based aircraft had an organic ASuW ability.
These formidable aircraft of ‘312-Alpha’ were quickly off the mark, operating all over the seas surrounding the Penninsula and well beyond, in the Indian Ocean Region, tracking surface vessels and submarines across the IOR. Before the Squadron was even formally commissioned, they had conducted deployments away from their home base, operating from Port Blair as well as Malaysia during the MH370 search efforts. In fact, a P-8I was ready in place at a base in Malaysia within 24 hours of India’s commitment to this international operation. Regardless of the type’s fledgling status in the Navy, this deeply impressed crews and commanders alike, and there is nothing but heady optimism for the future of the P-8I in service with the Indian Navy.
INAS 312 A was formally commissioned by then Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar in October 2015, the Minister having flown to INS Rajali onboard an Indian Navy P-8I from Port Blair. The dedication ceremony at INS Rajali, home base of Indian Naval Air Squadron (INAS) 312A now under the command of Commander Venkateshwaran Ranganathan, was held in presence of the then Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral RK Dhowan and then FOC- in- C, Eastern Naval Command Vice Admiral Satish Soni.
With final phase out of the Tupolev Tu-142s, INAS 312 became a purely P-8I squadron and with increasing operations achieved 10,000 flight hours by mid-2017, also receiving the Chief of Naval Staff’s unit citation for “outstanding operational performance”. The P-8I has endowed the Indian Navy with very long (sea) legs and for the first time in its history, flew the IN’s flag far and wide. In October 2017, for instance an Indian Navy P-8I was deployed to the Philippines, carrying out search and rescue of missing sailors, many Indian, from the MV Emerald Star which had sunk northeast off the coast of the Philippines. Operating from Villamor Air Base of the Philippine Air Force in Manila, the aircraft ( IN 323) dropped SAR kits which contained inflatable dinghies.
In July 2016, the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS), chaired by PM Narendra Modi, approved the purchase of four additional Boeing P-8I aircraft at a cost of $1 billion (Rs 6,700 crore), the first of which are to be received in late 2019. It is expected that these aircraft will be based at INS Hansa, Goa and possibly given the nomenclature INAS 315A, as expected to supplant the Ilyushin Il-38SDs which presently equip INAS 315 Winged Stallions at Dabolim. Future plans could well include doubling of the P-8I inventory and this is very much part of the Navy’s long term perspective plan.
In 2017, Boeing was contracted for 3 additional years in support continuation of the Indian Navy’s fleet of P- 8Is. Beyond field and logistics service, the contract included engineering, support and planning, robust material support, including a 737-based component services programme, to be executed in conjunction with Boeing Commercial Aviation Services’ Fleet Services division.
The Indian Navy’s P- 8Is have also operated alongside P-8As of the United States Navy from their patrol squadron (VP 47), based at Pearl Harbour (Hickam) most recently in August 2018 during Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercises. In October 2018 a US-Navy P-8A participated with the Indian Navy in anti-submarine warfare exercises from INS Hansa, in Goa on the Arabian Sea.
The P-8I has now truly given the Indian Navy’s air arm an international stature.