India's Buy of P-8 Patrol Aircraft Approved By U.S.

(MoneyWatch)  The United States State Department approved the proposed buy of eight maritime patrol aircraft by India from Boeing. As we wrote about in early January this was the largest contract awarded to an American company by India and represents a significant upgrade of their current maritime reconnaissance capability. Reuters reports that the announcement to Congress of the approval was made on March 12th. The P-8 is a Boeing 737 based aircraft that will replace the P-3C Orion in service with the U.S. Navy. An earlier attempt to build a P-7 aircraft was aborted back in the 1990's. The contract for India is for an aircraft, the P-8I, not identical to the U.S. aircraft and also will provide for spares and maintenance. Under Indian rules there will be some offsets by Boeing using Indian companies for parts and maintenance or through investment in that South East Asian country's economy.