On New Year’s Day in 2009, the Indian Navy announced the $2.1 billion purchase of eight Boeing P-8i Poseidon aircraft. The first of these modified 737s have already been delivered as of last month.
According to a report in the Business Standard newspaper, The P8-Is will operate from INS Rajali, a naval base at Arakonam, near Chennai, flying eight-hour missions over the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal and the northern Indian Ocean. These could involve seeking out pirates, suspicious cargo vessels, or hostile warships and submarines. During such missions, the P-8I’s enhanced internal fuel tanks will allow it to fly 1,100 kilometres to a patrol area, remain for up to six hours, and then fly back. Using aerial refuelling, this endurance can be doubled. On patrol, naval operators scour the area from banks of consoles inside the aircraft. A multi-mode radar in the P-8I’s nose cone looks forward and sideways, picking up aircraft, surface ships and submarines.
Meanwhile, a belly-mounted radar looks backwards, like an electronic rear-view-mirror. Suspicious objects can be investigated further: a suspected enemy submarine is pinpointed by dropping sonobuoys, floating sonar detectors that radio back telltale audio signals. A magnetic anomaly detector on the P-8I’s tail distinguishes between an enemy submarine and, say, a blue whale.
These sensors are backed up with armament. The P-8I has the enhanced wings of a Boeing 737-900 onto which weaponry can be mounted. This includes potent anti-ship Harpoon missiles, and the Mark 82 depth charge that the US Navy uses. Another compartment in the aircraft’s belly will house five Mark 54 torpedoes, the primary submarine-killing armament. These must be warm when they are launched, and so cannot be exposed to the icy temperatures of wing mounting.
Robert Schoeffling, the P-8 program’s Business Development head, anticipates Indian orders for 25 to 35 P8-Is. “With 7500 kilometers of coastline, 60 per cent of the world’s shipping traffic passing close by, tremendous need for maritime domain awareness, including anti-submarine, and with three aircraft carriers in the 2020s, the Indian Navy is going to have a tremendous need for such aircraft,” he says.
