Czech Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces and the Swiss Department of Defence, Civil Protection and Sports are considering a joint lease of 13 Airbus A400M transport aircraft from the German Bundeswehr.” The German Air Force has been operating Leased HERON UAVs for military operations in Afghanistan and Mali. SaaB had leased its Gripen Fighters to the Czech Republic and Hungary in the not so distant past. In effect, there is considerable confidence in the lease of aircraft by the armed forces. There is precedence for leasing in India as well. India has also previously leased nuclear submarines from Russia. More recently the Indian Navy has issued a RFP for ‘hiring’ (which is another word for ‘lease’) of a ‘multipurpose support vessel, including crew, for providing technical, logistics and communication support to Indian Navy for coastal security, including towing of naval ships, yard craft, auxiliary vessels, pontoon, fenders etc’. The RFP conditions included ‘carrying Indian Navy Operations personnel on board the hired vessel when required’. During Op Pawan, Op Swan and Op TASHA, the Indian Navy had ‘wet-leased’ various types of vessels and crafts for surveillance of the Palk Strait and other notified areas to prevent infiltration by the LTTE. More recently, the Indian Navy became the first service to benefit from the Lease category with induction of two General Atomics Sea Guardian, under the emergency
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procurement in November 2020. Lease of helicopters is a regular practice with many state governments. In 2020 alone the Government of Kerala, Government of Tripura and the Government of Arunachal Pradesh have leased or sought to lease specific helicopters for their requirements. The above examples establish that the Lease option has definitive merits and is adopted by several countries. Leasing offers many advantages for cost constrained and limited duration stop gap requirements by way of faster induction, enables concentration on core competence, removes technological complexity and lowers manpower costs for operations, maintenance and training and lowers cost and time of acquisition and yet meets immediate operational objectives. It is the vendor’s responsibility to ensure the requisite force levels and guarantee service delivery on a pay by use model. From a structuring perspective there is flexibility in availing one of several types of lease, be it wet, dry, damp, financial or operational lease. So, it is not a completely new approach for rapid force augmentation and therefore the ICG can seriously explore the option for lease of medium range MRMR aircraft, specifically configured with maritime surveillance and monitoring functions, airborne anti-pollution suites and secure communications for bridging the capability gap until the MMMA and
the MRMR aircraft are inducted. It is also possible for the ICG to explore the leasing of helicopters until its ‘regular’ helicopters are contracted. Several companies are offering ISR surveillance on diverse customer specified platforms. These could include the large single aisle Boeing 737-600 and Airbus 320(ceo) platforms on the one hand or to medium size Q-400, EMB 145 or Gulfstream platforms or the smaller aircraft and highly versatile aircraft such as King Air 350 ER, Pilatus PC 12 or the Twin Otter Series 400 etc. For example, the Beechcraft King Air 350 has an endurance of about 12 hours, can do speeds of more than 260 knots and has a RoA of nearly 2,300 NM. Sophisticated bespoke maritime sensor suites can be integrated and operated by upto 4 specialised observers. This is a marked improvement in capability. It is also worth noting that pre-owned KingAir350 or the Twin Otter are available, and they can be converted to a MPA version. So far as helicopters are concerned the options include refurbished preowned ‘commercial’ AS 365 N3, AW 109, SH 70 etc. to marine specifications and requirements of the customer. The ‘lease’ business model could be that the lessor positions the required number of aircraft at customer specified designated locations with the flight and maintenance crew included but the operational crew (Observers) being ICG personnel. The remuneration model
