MOSCOW. April 17 (Interfax-AVN) - A decision whether to supply two IL-38 May Russian combat aircraft to India will be taken this year, a competent source in the Russian defense industry told Interfax-Military News Agency Thursday.
"India requested two IL-38s after two Indian planes of the make had collided in the air in the fall of 2002. All in all India had five IL-38s supplied in 1997," the source said.
According to Viktor Livanov, CEO of the Ilyushin Aircraft Corporation, the firm's experimental facilities are going on with a modernization of the IL-38 for India, and another modernized version of the IL-38 is under joint state trials for the Russian Air Force. The trials are to be finished this year, he told Interfax-AVN.
He also said that the Russian and Indian upgrade programs differed in the onboard equipment, including the sight-and-search systems.
The plan of IL-38 modernization for the Russian Air Force includes replacement of the Berkut anti-submarine system with the new Novella system made by the St. Petersburg-based Leninets holding company. In addition to radio-hydro-acoustic buoys, a magnetometer and radar, the plane will get a domestic IR imager and a radio-technical intelligence system.
The plan also includes repairs of the planes and extension of their service lives to 40 years, which will make it possible to operate modernized IL-38 planes until 2010 or 2012.
The IL-38 has been designed on the basis of the IL-18V Coot passenger aircraft. It is the main medium-range anti-submarine fixed-wing aircraft. All in all about 60 aircraft have been built and five of them have been supplied to India.
In accordance with a contract signed in September 2001, all Indian IL-38s (currently three pieces) are to be upgraded before 2005.