IAF wants American firms back in attack copter competition

The Ministry of Defence may extend conditions that will facilitate American firms Boeing and Bell back into the 22 attack helicopter competition for the Indian Air Force (IAF) which was floated in June last year. In September last year, both countries unilaterally bailed out from the competition after they decided that they could not meet deadlines for the submission of technical bids.

Sources say that the IAF is attempting to convince the government to create a situation where the two American firms can be back in the competition — the IAF is keen that the Boeing AH-64D Apache Longbow and Bell AH-1 Super Cobra are is part of the competition, considering they represent what they think is among the latest and best in attack chopper development. The IAF’s recommendation is currently under consideration by the MoD.

The contenders officially in the fray for now are the AgustaWestland AW129 Mangusta, Eurocopter Tiger, Kamov Ka-50 Black Shark and the Mil Mi-28 Havoc.

13 thoughts on “IAF wants American firms back in attack copter competition”

  1. Well, the army doesn’t want helicopters, so said Air Chief Major once, they want a Eurocopter!…and the IAF wants Bell!! Its not about fairness or openness but about a certain brand..these faujis dont even know how to do frauds, eat money, cheat the system..they make it so obvious!

  2. I thought India needs the helicopters quicker than the aircrafts especially when helicopters would prove to be more useful in tackling terror groups and small band of intruders. My favourites are Ka-52 and Mil Mi-28N.Apache is great but once again there would be problems with ToT as Augusta Westland is the only licenced re-producer outside the US.When is the Hal weaponised version and attack version due – anyone knows?

  3. Give the Apache long bow to all,Army Air force,Navy,State police…Every one and end it

    Apache is s tried and a tested bed,its toughness and durability matched and marked

  4. Ya right!! Apache is only good in Discovery Channel and Gaza. Look at what happened to AH-64 in Iraq. They were pummelled by ground fire and had to ground the whole fleet for a month. This is the case of asymmetric warfare..so think about what will happen with pakis armed will 1000s of duplicate chinese manpads. We should stick with Russians..either Ka-50 since we already have ASW gyropters or Mi-28 wuth israeli avionics and weapons..For Naxal menace..UCAVs like Eitan-HALE with spikes or AC-130 will be a good bet I guess.

  5. Your pre-amriki mindset makes you say things like “they represent what they think is among the latest and best in attack chopper development”. Grow up!

    I believe thay are being dragged back into the competition only to bring their rivals’ price down.

  6. @ anon 9:54

    “south korea bought 24 ah64 apache helicopters for $811 million and that was 60% lower than actual factory “
    ———————————–

    that was precisely the reason which lead to the present fiasco….IAF wanted a similar deal…Boeing,who are out to fleece us would never agree coz that would lead to loss of product price for further acquisitions ;hence they promptly ran off under the excuse that they were not given sufficient time to prepare their technical bids!
    What bloody liars! and you expect us to purchase the MMRCA from them??? God knows what crooked plans they have for the MMRCA deal.

  7. Any helicopter of this segment is not good in high altitude performance.I think newly designed HAL LCH(prototype come in late 2009) will overcome this nagging problem as seen in Kargil war.

  8. The latest Apache models have the edge over the current Russian models in electronics, but that gap seems to be closing.
    They also have the advantage of the the fire-and-forget Hellfire missiles, which can be advantageous in some operational conditions.

    Downsides are atleast twice the cost for the newer models, problems in maintenance in rough conditions, & lack of armour.

    With the Russian choppers you should be able to integrate some Western electronics as well as fitting them to fire the likes of the Pars 3 or RBS 15, giving a much better allround package than the Apache's at a lower cost.

  9. We should go in for a COIN aircraft similar to PUCARA (from Argentina) or OV10 Bronco (from US).

    The OV10 Broco is owned by Boeing. We can jointly update the airframe. Boeing can add the things they want and we can add what we want. This is give us a good COIN aircraft quickly ,while Boeing can get one with less costs.

    Similarly, we can do same with PUCARA.

    These can be operated by Army / BSF / CRPF for different activities.

    The Army version can be used against Armour & helicopters & control UAV's. The BSF & CRPF versions can be used for controlling UAV's and carrying out stikes against terrorists.

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