Indian Military

The Indian Navy has issued a Request For Information (RFI) for the procurement of a Vertical Take Off and Landing (VTOL) Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV).

The RFI, issued earlier this month, is for the procurement of, presumably, Naval Rotary UAVs (NRUAV). While there has been talk, recently, of the possibility of Northrop Grumman’s Fire Scout being procured by the Indian Navy, especially in light of the delays in the conversion of the Chetak helicopter into an unmanned platform, the navy’s stand is all vendors will have to go through this process begun with the RFI.

Besides Northrop Grumman’s Fire Scout, the other contenders could be EADS’ Orka 1200, Boeing’s Hummingbird and Israel Aerospace Industries’ (IAI) Malat’s NRUAV. But besides the Fire Scout, the navy understands the others to be still under development. The navy had a chance to consider the Austrian Schiebel’s Camcopter but has deemed it to small to match its requirements.

The Indian Air Force (IAF) contest for mid-air refueling tanker aircraft will depend on how a United States Air Force (USAF) competition for a massive order for 179 tankers plays out towards the end of the year.

The Indian tender is being reprocessed after India’s Finance Ministry thought the IAF’s earlier choice of the Airbus A330 MRTT (Multi Role Tanker Transport) over the Russian IL-78 too expensive, earlier this year, and compelled the IAF to start over, to select six tankers that could cost over a billion US dollars.

The IAF is keen on making sure the Russian IL-78 faces sufficient competition and that the relative abilities of the respective aircraft are rendered patently evident. This, coupled with the calculation of life-cycle costs of the aircraft, under the Air Staff Qualitative Requirements (ASQRs), is likely intended to preempt the objections of the Finance Ministry.

In addition to the earlier two contestants, the IAF would also like to get US defense and aerospace major Boeing into the running to make the contest more interesting, if nothing else.