Following an Indian suppliers’ meeting in Bangalore on November 8, executives of Lockheed Martin spoke to defenseworld.net and said that they would look at starting the ‘Make-in-India’ manufacturing project with 12 F-16 jets a year going up to 36 at peak.
Randall L Howard, head of business development head for the F-16 platform and Abhay Paranjape, director, business development-India interacted with over 40 Indian entities who showed interest in being part of the F-16 manufacturing project.
The partnership with India is being discussed between the Indian the U.S. government and if the deal comes through as a foreign military sales agreement, then a certain number of aircraft would be sold to India under ‘flyaway condition’, and the rest would be manufactured in India. These jets would also be exported to markets in the Middle -East, Eastern Europe and Asia.
