Boeing is set to meet the Indian defense ministry to offer details on its offer to set up an assembly line for the F/A-18 Super Hornet in India.

Shelly Lavender, President and CEO of Boeing Military Aircraft, told Indian journalists at the Farnborough Air Show 2016 held earlier this month, that Boeing and the U.S. Government would be meeting the defense ministry again to expand their proposal.

“We will be there later this month to go through the details,” said Lavender.

As reported by StratPost, the U.S. Government and Boeing had submitted proposals for the setting up of an assembly line for the Super Hornet in India, last April. At the same time, the U.S. Government had also submitted proposals along with Lockheed Martin for the transfer of the F-16 assembly line to India.

According to Lavender, Boeing’s big pitch here is its ability to leverage it’s commercial and defense businesses to create an ‘eco-system’ for the growth of the aerospace industry in India.

Outlining Boeing’s offer for the first time, she said, “When you think of Make in India, we’re the right partner to do that because we have such a global supply base to work with and we can also leverage our partners. So partners like – on the super hornet – Raytheon, GE, Northrop – how do all of us go together into India to help create that eco-system.”

“We believe we bring a lot of capability to India that no other competitor brings because there are no other competitors that have the commercial side and the defense side,” pointed out Lavender.

The Proposal

The kits are just the very beginning to get us started. – Shelly Lavender

“We’re (proposing) standing up a brand new line for the Super Hornet (in addition to the St Louis line). It would be a full-up, capable line in India,” said Lavender, clarifying, “The Super Hornet backlog is solid and we can see it clearly going out well into the 2020s.”

To begin with, Boeing has proposed the initial assembly of kits for the Super Hornet in India. “If you’re going to build an aircraft on Day 01, perhaps you don’t build all the parts in that factory on Day 01. We deliver kits and you assemble and do all the testing and the flyaway. Maybe you do that for a set amount of time. And then you start feeding in those other aspects as time moves on. On Day 01, it’s not the entire eco-system – magically sprinkle dust and it appears. It’s about developing it over time and how can we work together – perhaps we start with delivering kits to your industry and they assemble and then they deliver those assemblies to that final assembly plant – so its about working together to develop over time,” said Lavender.

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