Japan to Showcase Seaplane to Indian Navy

The Japanese Navy will showcase before the Indian Navy a seaplane and its operations during the ongoing trilateral Malabar maritime exercise, also involving the US Navy, off Nagasaki’s Port Sasebo in western Pacific Ocean.The seaplane, which the Navy wants to procure and deploy in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands for maritime patrol, is built by Japanese firm ShinMaywa. US-2, as the amphibious plane is called, can take off from and land on water and is a suitable platform for operations between island territories. The Japanese Navy would operate the US-2 sea-plane during the Malabar exercise, a Navy officer said here in New Delhi.

The Indian Navy is keen on getting around 20 of these sea-planes.During the exercise, the Navy personnel from India, the US and Japan would interact between Thursday to Saturday at Port Sasebo and later their warships would venture to the deep sea for at-sea training.The Japanese Navy would also deploy two destroyers along with a P3C Orion maritime reconnaissance plane during the exercise.