The Indian Navy P-8 fleet has achieved 10,000 flight hours since induction in 2015.
Indian Naval Air Squadron 312A has also received the Chief of Naval Staff’s unit citation for outstanding operational performance.
The Indian Navy operates eight P-8I aircraft for long-range maritime reconnaissance and anti-submarine warfare missions and has ordered four additional P-8I aircraft, for which deliveries will begin in 2020.
In January 2008, Boeing proposed the P-8I, a customised export variant of the P-8A, for the Indian Navy. It features two major components not fitted on the P-8A, a Telephonics APS-143 OceanEye aft radar and a magnetic anomaly detector (MAD).
In January 2009, India’s Ministry of Defence signed a US$2.1 billion agreement with Boeing for the supply of eight P-8Is to replace the Indian Navy’s aging Tupolev Tu-142M maritime surveillance turboprops. India was the P-8’s first international customer and was also Boeing’s first military sale to India.
In October 2010, India’s Defence Acquisition Council approved the purchase of four additional P-8Is; this purchase is reportedly under consideration as of 2014. In 2011, India planned to order 12 more P-8Is at a later date. In July 2016, it was confirmed India had ordered another four P-8Is that will be delivered by 2020
The aircraft are based at INS Rajali, in Tamil Nadu. In 2014, several Indian Navy P-8Is conducted search operations for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.
The fourth, fifth and sixth aircraft was delivered in May, September and November 2014 respectively. The seventh and eight aircraft were delivered in February and November 2015 respectively. Indian Navy inducted the first squadron in November 2015.
P8 the leading maritime patrol aircraft, the UK should ditched Nimrod mra4 in 2005 and joined the P8 project.
Huge amounts of money would have been saved and the UK would have retained maritime patrol capability.
By 2005 it obivious that mra4 was in very serious trouble, only politics stopped it being scrapped at that time.
Agreed the program was a disaster, billions wasted and only scrap metal to show for it.
It’s true. Those in charge should learn from these sort of mistakes and make sure there is nothing in the current project lineup where we are in danger of repeating them. For me though, as an outsider who can only watch, the Nimrod wasted billions and the carrier wasted billions (from slowing down the build schedule and then flip-flopping on CATOBAR) are two of the items on my list of things that are just too depressing to think about. Oh, what we could have now in terms of P-8 up and running (like India) if we’d pulled the plug on… Read more »
Millions was wasted by mismanagement on the Nimrod. But at the time David Cameron took the decision to waste it, it had at got through all its extensive teething issues. The decision then was to scrap metal a healthy fleet of aircraft (More capable than the P8) on a political statement. You can sight cost overruns but the money had already been spent! The aircraft were all but commissioned. Just like scraping the harriers before their airframes were due, was in my mind senseless. We went to war in Libya and Tornado/Eurofighter’s were having to fly thousands of miles when… Read more »