India Moves Forward on New Fighter

(MoneyWatch)  Reuters is reporting that the Indian government plans to move forward with the next step for their new fighter program. This illustrates the county's commitment to upgrade their military over the next decade. This will be a series of trials of the six aircraft proposed. In the U.S. it would be called a flyoff. It allows the companies participating to demonstrate the capability of their product under some realistic conditions to the customer. To add to the realism the companies will train Indian military pilots to fly the aircraft in a variety of missions and weather conditions. Boeing, Lockheed Martin, MiG, Eurofighter, SAAB and Daussalt are participating in the bid. Lately India has turned to the U.S. rather then its predominantly Russian or English suppliers for their military buying transports from Lockheed and patrol aircraft from Boeing. If there is a significant downturn in U.S. defense spending as is expected then sales to other nations will hopefully make up some of the market loss.