Hindustan Aeronautics plans four new manufacturing plants

(The Economic Times)  : Hindustan Aeronautics Limited has plans to set up four manufacturing plants for the production of medium multi-role combat aircraft, light utility helicopter, fifth generation fighter aircraft and multi-role transport aircraft, a senior company official said today.

HAL Director (Design & Development), N C Agarwal, said the Bangalore-headquartered company, under the Ministry of Defence , is looking to set up a new complex for MMRCA.

Government is to buy 18 aircraft under the MMRCA programme from a foreign manufacturer, with the remaining 108 to be produced by HAL under licence.

He said the HAL is scouting for a location for manufacture of light utility helicopter (LUH), and once it's identified, government approval would be sought.

Separate factories have also been proposed for fifth generation fighter aircraft (FGFA) and multi-role transport aircraft he said, adding, as per initial plans, MTA would be manufactured in Kanpur and FGFA in Nasik.

Agarwal said work has started on the preliminary design of FGFA. "Russian team is here (in Bangalore) to train our people", he told PTI.

FGFA is a USD six billion project, to be equally shared by India and Russia.

FGFA would have advanced features such as stealth, super cruise, ultra-manoeuvrability, highly integrated avionics suite, enhanced situational awareness, internal carriage of weapons and network centric warfare capabilities, officials said.