India has not had the time on review their latest C-17, C-130 and P-8 procurments, since they are relativt New.
There's more than enough evidence available as to the availability rates of C-17, (UK, US and Aust) All 3 countries have done multiple transoceanic flights and in high tempo environments - and quite frankly, much higher tempo rates than anything India has undergone) The platforms have been so effective that each country increased their orders once they compared prev lift and availability rates.
In Australias case we cancelled the lease for russian heavy lifters due to better availability and costs
As a comparison, Our Norwegian P3C Orion has had difficulties in the past regarding different parts(systems parts made in US)..
Good Relationship can only help so much.
I'd be curious to know what is different in the Norwegian support contract when no other ally that I can think of has ever suffered from the same support issues apart from Pakistan - and some of that was about not maintaining within class due to poor support contract construct in the first place. As we train and co-operate with over 3/4 of the current 20+P3 users I am more than curious as to what separates Norway from every other heavy user we work with. I'd be more than curious to know whether Norways problems for support have been with the P3C's or with their own versions (P3N) - and whether the faults have been with frame or fitout.
Heck, the spanish bought most of Norways P3B's - and have not had any availability issues. I'm more than curious when you consider similar sized fleets (Spain, Portugal, New Zealand, Greece) haven't had similar problems. New Zealand has a much higher tempo rate than most in Europe and doesn't have maint and support issues beyond needing and wanting more to do the job but losing out due to $$ priorities by successive Govts
The very reason why India canned their Ilyushins was due to distressingly bad support from the Russians - and even the carrot of upgrading to Sea Dragon (ultimately a package failure anyway) couldn't convince them to stay with the platform
P3's, C130's have some of the highest availability rates in the aviation world
C130 has close to 70 military users and half a dozen civil users - and a disproportionate number are repeat customers. Some of the users have appalling civ aviation records for maint contracts and they all manage to keep them flying even with poor schedules
P8's are based on a tried and true civil platform - which is why the platform was selected in the first place as it had high availability, was a trusted and tested frame etc..... They could of have course spent another 10 years trying to get what remained of the flight of Ilyushins back in the air - but even with Indias bad historical procurement model - the Exchequer has managed to force through change and started to get IndMil to start buying and supporting along Western contract models
