The Indian Navy has taken on-site delivery of the first of the Boeing P-8I Long-Range Maritime Reconnaissance and Anti-Submarine Warfare aircraft ordered in January 2009. Indian Navy pilots are training on this aircraft in the USA and expect to ferry it to India in May 2013. The Boeing P-8 is a long-range anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft first developed for the US Navy as a replacement to the ageing P3C Orion on the successful Boeing 737 airframe. The P-8I has been customised for India and will plug the huge gaps in the Indian Navy’s maritime monitoring and surveillance capabilities. The P-8I will also be armed with anti-ship, Harpoon missiles, torpedoes and depth bombs to give it potent anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare capability.
The P-8I will replace the ageing and fuel-guzzling Russian Tupolev-142M of the Indian Navy. Presently, the Navy uses the TU-142M, IL-38SD and Dornier aircraft for surveillance operations in the Indian Ocean region.