India in $1bn Lockheed jet buy

India has agreed to buy six Lockheed Martin C-130J military transport planes in a breakthrough deal with the US worth about $1bn that opens a door to closer strategic ties, US officials said on Tuesday.

India and the US signed an agreement on January 31 for Lockheed to start delivering the four-engine Super Hercules turboprop aircraft in 2011, said Bruce Lemkin, who handles US Air Force international affairs.

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The US has been eager to boost strategic ties with India as a hedge against China’s military clout.

Nicholas Burns, the third-highest ranking US State Department official whose retirement was announced last month, wrote late last year that in reaching out to India, the US was betting the planet’s future lay in democracy and market economics rather than “despotism and state planning,” an apparent swipe at communist-ruled China.

“It really provides the centerpiece of a growing relationship between our two air forces,” Mr Lemkin, a deputy undersecretary of the Air Force who had been working on the matter for almost two years, said.

James Clad, deputy assistant US secretary of defense for south and southeast Asia, said the deal dwarfed all US defense sales to New Delhi since Indian independence from Britain in 1947.

“This kind of puts us in a new environment,” he said. “With this sale, India is telling us it’s ready to buy top-quality US equipment on its merits.”

“It positions us to be in the Indian defense market for years to come,” he said.

Mr Lemkin said the agreement provided for US logistics support, training and spare parts as well as the aircraft.

Indian airmen would start training in the US, probably in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 2010, the year before deliveries start, he said.

The Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which handles government-to-government arms sales, notified Congress of the possible sale last May, putting its potential value at $1.06bn if all options were exercised.

Lockheed, the Pentagon’s No. 1 supplier by sales, and Boeing , its next-biggest supplier, are bidding against Russian and European rivals for a potential $10.2bn deal to sell the Indian air force 126 new multirole fighter aircraft.

Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed said it was pleased to see the acquisition process moving forward in India.

“The C-130J Super Hercules will provide the Indian Air Force with a highly advanced, flexible platform that will meet the range of missions unique to India,” the defence contractor said.

Officials at the Indian embassy in Washington did not return phone calls seeking comment.