Lockheed Martin has offered to manufacture over 30 aircraft a year in its proposed Indian facility, one of its most ambitious fighter aircraft production ventures outside the United States.
Lockheed executives briefing media following an Indian suppliers’ meeting in Bangalore today said that they would look at starting the ‘Make-in-India’ manufacturing project with 12 aircraft a year going up to 36 at peak. Randall L Howard, F-16 business development head and Abhay Paranjape, director, business development-India said that they interacted with over 40 Indian entities over the last couple of days who showed interest in being part of the F-16 manufacturing project.
The suppliers’ meet is being followed-up by visits to the facilities of some of the Indian entities to asses their ability to be part of the F-16 supply chain, they said.
The partnership with India is being discussed between the Indian the US government and should the deal come through as a foreign military sales (FMS) agreement, then a certain number of aircraft would be sold to India under ‘flyaway condition’, and the rest would be manufactured in India.
As to possible location of the proposed plant, Howard said nothing was considered yet but it would have to be near an air base with access to a runway.
“The cost to India would reduce with every new block of aircraft manufactured and given the competitive labor costs here, you can look at a real competitively priced plane,” said Howard adding that the made-in-India F-16 would also be exported to markets in the Middle -East, Eastern Europe and Asia.