India’s aerospace behemoth, Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) had a good outing at Farnborough this year with several companies wanting to have a tie-up in various areas, knowing fully well the kind of market, partnerships are likely to open up.

There was a lot of excitement about India’s proposal for a Regional Civil Aircraft programme, a 70-90 seater aircraft. The UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) made the first moves with its Director Carole Sweeney stating that a number of UK industries would be keen on participating in the programme, given the expertise and skills they had.

The HAL Chairman Dr. R.K. Tyagi assured the Director that India will certainly be looking at partnerships to take the regional transport programme forward. He said that soon a request for proposal (RFP) would be issued for the engine of the aircraft as 11 bidders had already responded to the recent request for information (RFI) issued. The aircraft would be manufactured in India with an expected roll-out by 2022. The UK industries will have their opportunities, he added.

T. Suvarna Raju, Director, D&D of HAL, said: “In the initial period we expect around 400 aircraft to be produced. This is conservative estimate and the potential is much more considering that India has 450 airstrips and more cities would be linked with air travel in future.” HAL and National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL) have taken the lead to build this aircraft on public-private partnership model. A special purpose vehicle (SPV) is being formed by HAL and NAL to steer this project.

Some of the key representatives from UK industries such as ADS Group, Aircraft Research Association, Cobham, Cranfield University, Meggitt, Rolls-Royce, Stirling Dynamics, Ultra Controls, UTAS, UKIBC were present in the meeting. “Many more who are not present in this meeting would be interested to be part of this project”, said Sweeny. She welcomed HAL’s idea of holding a technical workshop on the subject in near future to understand the subject in detail.

Bahrain evinces interest for their hawk fleet

Bahrain’s Minister for Transport Kamal bin Ahmed Mohamed who also looks after his country’s defence matters, visited HAL Chalet at Farnborough, and evinced keen interest in HAL’s activities. At a meeting with HAL Chairman Dr Tyagi and company directors, he sought HAL’s technical support in maintaining the Hawk fleet of Bahrain Air Force.

He also urged HAL to increase its participation level at the biennial Bahrain Airshow. “Without HAL, our shows are incomplete.” He felt that Indian Defence companies have a lot to offer to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and Bahrain could play a key role in all this.

Thales to further strengthen strategic partnership

The CEO of Thales, Jean-Bernard Lavy called on HAL team and expressed his keen desire to take forward the ongoing business activities in India in cooperation with HAL. He told HAL Chairman and Directors that Thales would have a strategic look at India given the business potential in defence sector and he would be in India with his team sometime in November this year.

Thales, a major global aerospace company with over 100 years of experience is involved with HAL in Mirage 2000 up-gradation programme and extends technical support to several major HAL platforms. Lavy emphasised on structuring all the activities over certain period rather than handling each project on case by case basis. The Airbus Helicopter CEO and President, Guillaume Faury and his team also met the HAL top executives. The Airbus Helicopter is involved with HAL Cheetah and Chetak projects but expressed the desire to play a greater role in Indian helicopter market which has huge potential. They seemed keen on Indian Multi-role Helicopters (IMRH) and Navy Multi-role Helicopters (NMRH). The HAL Chairman stressed on association that creates value and jobs for the country.