New Delhi: Brazilian aviation major Embraer on Friday tied up with the Mahindra Group eyeing the Indian Air Force’s mega transport aircraft deal — Medium Transport Aircraft (MTA) that will require the foreign company to lay an assembly line in India.
The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been signed with the objective of jointly fulfilling the acquisition of the C-390 Millennium multi-mission aircraft by the IAF, a joint statement by the companies said.
It added that Embraer and Mahindra will engage with the IAF to identify the next steps of the MTA program, as well as contact the local aerospace industry in India to start developing the industrialisation plan for the project.
As ThePrint reported in August last year, Embraer was in talks with state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and private companies to firm up a pitch to respond to IAF requirements for 40 to 80 Medium Transport Aircraft that will eventually replace AN32s and even IL76s.
For the MTA programme, Embraer will compete with two other companies: Lockheed Martin of the US and European major Airbus.
Interestingly, both Lockheed and Airbus have a tie-up with the TATA group for ongoing projects.
All three companies had responded to a Request for Information (RFI) issued by the IAF in December 2022. As per the RFI, the IAF is interested in an aircraft with a load-carrying capacity of 18-27 tonnes.
IAF wants the aircraft to be capable of undertaking operations at high altitudes and also be able to land and take off in unprepared runways like India’s Advanced Landing Grounds (ALGs) in Ladakh and the Northeast.
This is part of the IAF’s plan to have a wide range of transport aircraft that are capable of lifting different kinds of equipment and different tonnage for humanitarian and special group operations.
While the numbers are not yet fixed, the IAF had sought a Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) cost of aircraft and associated equipment for a batch of 40, 60, and 80 aircraft.
The companies were asked to send in details about the scope of technology transfer, ways to enhance indigenisation, capability to ensure indigenous manufacture of systems, subsystems, components and spares and for making India a regional or global hub for the MRO (maintenance, repair and overall).
This is yet another attempt by the IAF to get MTAs since originally this was to be a joint Indo-Russia project.
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The two countries had even signed a pact for the co-development of the aircraft in 2012 under which India would have bought 45 aircraft while Russia around 100. The deal was tanked in 2016 after both failed to reach an agreement with regard to the design and engine of the aircraft.
India currently operates a wide range of transport aircraft, from the small Avros to the AN 32s, C-130Js and the bigger IL 76s and C-17s.
The oldest of them, the Avros, are being replaced by the Airbus’s C-295 planes with a capacity of 9 tonnes.
For the MTA programme, while Lockheed has offered its C-130 aircraft – 12 of which are already in use with the IAF – Airbus has pitched its A-400 M, while Embraer has offered the C-390 Millennium.
Embraer and Mahindra have said they will explore the potential to turn India into a future hub of the C-390 aircraft for the region.
As reported by ThePrint, all three aircraft are very different from each other, not just in terms of lift and operational capabilities but also in terms of engines. While both the C-130 and the A-400 M are turboprop, the C-390 has a jet engine. Moreover, while the C-130 J just meets the minimum requirement with its airlift capacity of about 20 tonnes, the C-390 meets the upper requirement mentioned by the IAF with its load-carrying capacity of 26 tonnes. The A-400 M goes beyond the specified requirement with its capacity of 37 tonnes.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
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