Sunday, May 22, 2011

EXCLUSIVE! Commercial Bids for Trainers Opened

Neelam Mathews

May 22, 2011

Time: 9:40pm IST

 

Commercial Bids for the 75 basic trainer aircraft for the Indian Air Force were opened late last week. It is expected the contract will be awarded- given all things move smoothly- by July.

 

India has been anxious to make a procurement decision on the much needed trainers to replace its ageing fleet of over 100 HPT-32 (Hindustan Piston Trainers) that have suffered a spurt of crashes, leaving India to depend on its second line of limited trainers.

The final contenders are Beechcraft T-6C military trainer, Pilatus PC-7 and Korea Aerospace KT-1.

 

The IAF requires its trainers to have a synthetic cockpit, no head on display and a service life of 12,000 hours.

 

The Basic Trainer RFP comes with a 30% offsets clause. 

 

An additional 106 aircraft may be added. They will be manufactured by government-owned defense manufacturer, Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) through technology transfer.

 

 

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1 comment:

  1. UnknownMay 24, 2011 at 7:43 AM

    I am familiar with the T-6C as it is similar to the state-of-the-art trainer aircraft in wide service (over 700 in service) in several countries to include the United States. I think the PC-7 is a decades old design. Is it still in current production? My recollection is it has been long superceeded by the Pilatus PC-9, then the PC-21. I'm not as familiar with the KT-1 since it is in very limited service.

    What aircraft did the Indian Air Force select to train their military aviators?

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