Boeing’s rise in India
Boeing, a global designer and manufacturer of aircraft, spacecraft and weapon systems, has been actively advancing its business activities in the Indian subcontinent. With over 160,000 employees, the US multinational aerospace giant is the second-largest manufacturer of military airplanes and arms, it offers a wide range of airborne systems including missiles, fighter jets, attack helicopters, heavy transport aircraft and helicopter to defence forces globally.
Boeing, a global designer and manufacturer of aircraft, spacecraft and weapon systems, has been actively advancing its business activities in the Indian subcontinent. With over 160,000 employees, the US multinational aerospace giant is the second-largest manufacturer of military airplanes and arms, it offers a wide range of airborne systems including missiles, fighter jets, attack helicopters, heavy military transport aircraft and helicopters to defence forces globally. With a diversified line-up of its cutting-edge systems, Boeing has been consistently speeding up the mission readiness and modernisation of the Indian Armed Forces in the 21st century.
After Russia, American defence corporations have now emerged as the leading weapon suppliers to the Indian military, and with more than $15 billion sales, Boeing is the largest US exporter of military hardware to India. Boeing continues its very long partnership with the Indian military, since the 1940s, supplying services, warplanes and weapon solutions. About 75 years ago, the fledgling Indian Air Force enrolled two Boeing warplanes, the T-6G Harvard advanced trainer and the C-47 Skytrain (Dakota DC-3) military transport aircraft, into its young fleet. Inducted in 1946, the second world warera Dakota DC-3 (Parashuram in IAF) had played an indispensable role as the key airlift workhorse during the major post-independence conflicts including the 1965 and 1971 wars. This quintessential Boeing transporter had been the backbone of the IAF cargo fleet for forty long years. However, a refurbished version of Dakota DC-3 of IAF flew recently for the 1st time during Aero India at Yelahanka, Bengaluru.
Even today, Boeing plays a key role in the fleet modernisation of Indian armed forces. Leading cutting edge US military warplanes, such as C-17 Globemaster III, CH-47F Chinook, Poseidon P-8 long-range maritime reconnaissance aircraft (LRMRA) and AH- 64E Apache Guardians have already been flying in the Indian colours. The company has supplied nearly tens of billions of dollars worth of military airplanes and hardware to Indian Air Force and the Navy in a single decade, from 2011 to 2020.
The eleven massive Boeing-supplied C- 17 Globemaster III heavy- lift cargo planes are the much-needed boost to tactical and strategic airlift missions of the Indian Air Force. In 2011, New Delhi sealed a $4.7B pact with the US to acquire 10 Boeing-made C-17 airplanes, while Boeing delivered one more aircraft (which is the world’s last Globemaster) under a separate contract signed in 2016. Deployed with No. 81 Sky Lords squadron, these giant Boeing’s cargo planes are significant force multipliers for the country and are deployed extensively by the IAF for a wide range of military and emergency operations entailing troop transport, combat airlift, emergency humanitarian aid ( food and medical supplies), and disaster relief. Similarly, the newly acquired fifteen tandem-rotor Boeing CH-47 Chinooks have also boosted the mission readiness of IAF’s transport fleet. In the absence of IAF’s Mi-26s fleet that is now grounded and needs a major overhaul to resume flying operations, the Air Force’s 126 helicopter Flight (the Featherweights) squadron equipped with new CH- 47 Chinook heavy-lift helicopters is actively taking part in all the crucial Indian military operations and disaster relief, they have been playing a major role in Ladakh amid border tensions with Chinese People’s Liberation Army. Moreover, their deployment for lifesaving operations in Uttarakhand during the recent ‘ Glacier Burst Disaster’ was extremely significant.
Further, Boeing has also completed deliveries of 22 advanced-generation AH64E Apache Guardians to IAF along with 15 Chinooks (I) under the same $3 billion contract sealed in 2015. Packed with unique Longbow MMW fire control radar, AIM92 Stinger anti-air and AGM-114 Hellfire anti- surface munitions, these Boeingmade gunships are the most deadly attack helicopters globally. In absence of suitable options for high- altitude scouting and warfare, the Air Force has deployed some of its Guardian gunships fitted with Longbow FCR in Ladakh amid the deadlock situation
at Line of Actual Control. In the meantime, the company is also executing a $ 900 million order of six Apache gunships for the Army Aviation Corps of the Indian Army.
Apart from the IAF and Indian Army, the American aerospace giant, also, has been upgrading the crucial ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance), ASuW and submarine hunting muscles of the Indian Navy by delivering the world’s most advanced and proven multi-mission maritime warplane, the Poseidon P- 8. The P-8I, an Indian variant of the USN’s P-8A, has been precisely built and equipped with the systems preferred by the Indian Navy. Currently, the Navy operates eight of these naval force-multipliers which are being extensively used for a wide range of maritime missions and border surveillance due to its exceptional sensor capabilities. Four additional P- 8Is are also being delivered to the Indian Navy worth $1.1 billion, while the Indian MoD has already approved a 3rd purchase contract for 6 additional P-8Is in 2019. As India and the United States have completed the troika of active defence cooperation agreements, the latest batch of these surveillance aircraft could bring a number of key advanced technologies and enhanced capabilities to the Indian Navy. These pacts, especially COMCASA and BECA, will enable Boeing’s systems the real-time access to geospatial intelligence architecture of the US which eventually will boost ISR power and exactitude of the weapon systems fitted on P-8I. Moreover, these aircraft would feature encrypted communication systems from the US to form secure networks for exchanging critical intelligence and battlefield data between both militaries and likely with other Quad nations too.
Aside from supplying military airplanes, Boeing, also, is arming IAF as well as Indian Navy’s aircraft with anti- ship weapons; multiple sets of Boeing-made AGM-84 Harpoon Block-II cruise missiles have been procured by the Navy, and these naval strike missiles are the mainstays on the Navy’s P- 8Is warplanes and Shishumar- Class boats. Similarly, the Air Force of India also acquired these subsonic anti-ship missiles for its Jaguar maritime strike squadron to expand its naval fighting capability. Interestingly, under the BECA ( Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement) terms, these Harpoons too will get massive upgrade with high- quality real- time guidance to strike maritime targets with high precision.
Along with on-time deliveries of these military warplanes to the Indian military, Boeing, also, has been maintaining and providing a high serviceability rate since their induction. In this direction, it has already started exploring strategic Indian partners for the maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) of key military platforms under the newly launched Boeing India Repair Development and Sustainment (BIRDS) Hub. The Gurgaon-based Air Works is the first Indian collaborator under this freshly launched initiative.
To maintain its title of the largest US defence exporter to India, Boeing, now, is targeting the big-ticket multi-billion dollar ‘Make-in-India’ defence projects entailing the Air Force’s MMRCA 2.0 contest for 114 medium-weight combat planes and 57 carrier-borne advanced multi-role fighters for the Indian Navy. Hence, Boeing has offered India both of its combat-proven fighter solutions; F/A-18 Super Hornet and the latest F-15EX. Interestingly, the F- 15EX is the next- generation multimission iteration of the F- 15 Eagle air superiority fighter, and being developed
for the United States Air Force, the aircraft completed its first flight recently. The airplane manufacturer has also secured the US government approval to pitch this under-development next-generation fighter solution to the Indian Air Force’s contest for 114 combat airrcaft. Meanwhile, it has also tendered its latest Block-3 multirole variant of carrier-borne Super Hornet to India’s Navy. And, to support Modi’s vision of Atma Nirbhar Bharat, it is now proposing next-generation manufacturing plants and building techniques of these advanced US warplanes in India.
Furthermore, in a bid to influence its key Indian customer, Boeing also demonstrated carrier-borne Super Hornet ‘ski-jump’ from a ramp (a critical capability to operate from IN’s STOBAR carriers), and as reports are emerging from various Indian media accounts, the Indian Navy is now considering a decisive plan to lease a ‘Block-III’ squadron of these Boeing-made navalised warplanes. At the Aero India exhibit, the company displayed all these advanced platforms including the KC-46A combat tanker that, also, has been tendered by Boeing to IAF’s contest for 6 aerial refuelling aircraft.
In a bid to fulfil its commitment to developing an Indian supply chain, Boeing has formed multiple JVs and alliances with a handful of Indian aerospace firms, both public and private, to produce complex components and high-quality aerostructures of its modern-age military and commercial aeroplanes such as the 787 Dreamliner, 777X, 737, AH-64E Apache, F-15, F/A18, Poseidon P-8 and Chinook. According to Boeing, the company has significantly expanded its sourcing from Indian vendors in the last few years. Presently, Boeing has quadrupled its sourcing over Rs 7,500-crore from India in the last two years.
With over 3,500 staff, Boeing’s Indian arm, Boeing-India, has strengthened its presence across the country including New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Rajali, Chennai and Hyderabad. Boeing’s BIETC (Boeing India Engineering and Technology Centre) is also a significant case of the company’s commitment to foster cutting edge aerospace and engineering innovations in India. In association with a network of academic and research institutions of India (12 R&D and 17 academic institutions partners such as IITs, IISc and CSIR labs), BIETC has been performing collaborative research and development in the areas of aerodynamic, aerostructures, advanced materials, manufacturing, communication networks and AI-enabled hardware and machine learning. Boeing Research & Technology- India has also delivered commercially viable solutions to AAI (Airport Authority of India) for Airplane Health Management ( AHM) and Air Traffic Management ( ATM). Overall, Boeing has now evolved as a true strategic partner of India.