India, US ink copter deal for Apache and Chinook
Ajay Banerjee
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, September 28
India and the US today signed the contract for the delivery of two separate types of specialised helicopters for the Indian Air Force (IAF) — one for undertaking attack and the other for lifting heavy loads.
This comes less than week after the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi had okayed the deal to buy 15 of the 47F Chinook helicopters that will lift heavy loads and 22 of the AH-64D Apache attack helicopters.
Both helicopters, which were used extensively in Afghanistan, are produced by Boeing, the Seattle-based US aerospace giant.
The contract was inked in New Delhi today sources told The Tribune. The $3.1-billion deal is unique. For the Chinook, it’s a direct commercial sale between Boeing and the Indian Ministry of Defence. In case of the Apache, since it’s an attack platform there are two parts to the deal. The ammunitions, engines, sensors and the radars on the copter shall be under the Foreign Military sales route between the Government of US and the Government of India while everything else on the copters, including its main body, shall be part of the commercial deal between the Boeing and the MoD. It will be supplied as one composite unit.
US law bars sales of certain weapons, engines and sensors unless the US Congress approves it hence the FMs clause.
Deliveries start after September 2018 and be completed by 54 months from signing of the contract. This would mean by March 2020 the entire lot would have to be delivered.
