Lockheed Martin Bids to Build Transport Aircraft in India

Lockheed Martin, the defense contractor based in Bethesda, Maryland, has offered to build forty-eight of sixty military transport aircraft in India if it wins a contract that media reports value at $10.5 billion.

India’s defense ministry issued the tender in August for sixty medium transport aircraft for the Indian Air Force. Lockheed Martin is bidding its C-130J Super Hercules. Under the proposal, twelve aircraft would arrive ready to fly from the company’s plant in Marietta, Georgia. Tata Advanced Systems,  would help build the other forty-eight in India.

The partnership is already in place. Dan Tenney, Lockheed Martin’s senior vice president for global business development and strategy, discussed the bid with Press Trust of India, the news agency.  That partnership is a joint venture in Hyderabad, in southern India, that makes the tail sections of the C-130J. Lapaas Voice reported that the partnership dates back fifteen years and that the venture is the only supplier of those parts to the global C-130J program.

Lockheed Martin also proposes to upgrade the twelve C-130J aircraft the Indian Air Force already flies, which would put seventy-two aircraft of one type in a single fleet. The existing aircraft have logged more than 58,000 flight hours, according to the reports. Other bids for the contract are in, and field trials in Rajasthan and Ladakh are planned.

Lockheed Martin’s proposal pairs direct deliveries with production in India, the structure the company has chosen for this sale. American aerospace and defense suppliers weighing the India market should watch how the bid fares, because the contract is large and Lockheed Martin’s offer ties a major sale to production in India.  Earlier, General Atomics has signed deal to have HAL India assemble its most powerful armed UAVs  for sale in India.