Manufacturing location for Indian Air Force C295MW
On Thursday 27 October 2022, the Indian Ministry of Defence (MoD) Secretary Ajay Kumar announced that the C295MW transport aircraft for the Bharatiya Vayu Sena (IAF, Indian Air Force) will be manufactured by the Airbus-Tata consortium (Tata Advanced Systems Ltd - TASL) at Vadodara in the state of Gujarat.
The facility's foundation stone will be laid by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 30 October 2022.
Early September 2021, Scramble Magazine reported that the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) cleared the large defence deal with the procurement of 56 Airbus C295MW transport aircraft to replace the current fleet of BAe748. Sixteen aircraft will be bought off-the-shelf and forty will be manufactured in India at the new TASL facility.
The delivery schedule of the transporters is reported to be from 2026 to 2031 for the aircraft manufactured in India. The C295MWs built with Airbus Defence and Space at Sevilla/San Pablo (Spain) are scheduled to be delivered between 2023 to 2025. The first IAF C295MW (construction number 209), still in primer, was already noted outside at Sevilla in May 2022.
Early April 2019, India’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) concluded the price negotiations to acquire a total of 62 Airbus C295MW/MPA aircraft for the Indian Air Force (56 aircraft) and the Indian Coast Guard (6 aircraft). The Contract Negotiation Committee (CNC) concluded consultations with Tata Advanced Systems Limited (TASL) to procure the 62 aircraft for USD 3.15 billion. As far as Scramble Magazine is aware, the CCS has not yet approved the additional six aircraft for the Coast Guard.
Photo (just illustrative) by Keith Pisani (via Planespotters.net)