LCH and other Helicopters Discussion Thread

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 14 Jul 2013 12:19

If they want to lease , just rope in Pawan Hans or similar private players in the country to do the job , they have mix fleet of choppers from East and West and MHA can just pay them as they use. No expensive procurement , cost of maintenance , training/salary of pilots etc.

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 14 Jul 2013 17:12

I am really appalled.When the armed forces have plumped for the Dhruv in the hundreds after years of serious ,intense testing under the world's worst conditions,the MHA want something "better"! For what? Where are the MHA honchos going to use these helos? In Siachen,or merely transporting the precious backsides of the sh*tty MHA bosses from one air-con vehicle to another.As Kersi rightly said,the one aerobatic manoeuvre that the Dhruv cannot perform is that of the "kickback"! Ottavio Quattrochi,RIP,India is still with you in spirit.This is omne clear case where the PM/DM /FM should firmly put their feet down and force the MHA to buy the Dhruv to promote indigenisation.

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 15 Jul 2013 02:05

Back to the LCH topic.One can understand the argument about buying more Dhruvs until the decision on the LUH is made or our desi one arrives,but it will not do for the IN as the Dhruv didn't fit the bill,was too large for IN's shipboard hangars,etc.The All-3s/Chetaks tech wise are also obsolete given the expanding threat from quieter conventional subs.The contest reported to be yet again cancelled is between the Eurocopter Fennec and Kamov's Sergei.

While the Eurocopter Fennec is single-engined-twin-engined versions also exist,the Sergei is twin-engined,with interchangeable mission pods/cabins for ambulance versions,etc.The Fennec has a range of 650km while the co-axial Sergei has a range of 600 and is slower,but can astonishingly carry 9 passr. as against the Fennec's 4.The Sergei is also 2m shorter,but 0.5m taller than the Fennec,making it smaller and easier to be accommodated aboard smaller IN warships.It also has a higher service ceiling of 6200m as against the Fennec's 5,280m,a full 3000ft. less,a vital factor when sued in high alt. missions such as ay Siachen.Interestingly,the Kamov bird also uses French helo engines,a win-win situ for France/Turbomeca whichever one is chosen.

This a report by the "F" mag on the choice of engine for the LUH and other details.If the details about IOC and production are correct,then the armed forces will have to wait for at least 4 years before the first LUH arrives.

Hindustan Aeronautics Limited's (HAL) Light Utility Helicopter (LUH) will now fly with Turbomeca's Shakti 1U engine, a derivative of the Shakti 1H1 engine used on Dhruv. Turbomeca has emerged as the successful bidder in the global tender process over the Rolls Royce Honeywell LHTEC CTS-800 engine. Selection of the engine was the main constraint in the progress of the project which is now in the final stage.

HAL received its formal project sanction in February 2009, and early plans called for Initial Operational Clearance (IOC) to be achieved by February, 2014. This was projected based on the assumption that the Shakti Engine used in the Dhruv Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH) would also be used in the LUH after due development and certification. This was not the case and after problems cropped up, HAL had to go through the entire engine selection again through a global tender process.

Now that Turbomeca has emerged the winner, the IOC is planned to be obtained by 2017, and HAL is looking to build all 187 helicopters in seven years. This would mean that deliveries would be complete by 2024-25. No Limited Series Production (LSP) helicopters are planned to be built and the LUH will directly enter series production after the three prototypes are built and test flown.

The Shakti 1U engine’s Full Authority Digital Engine Control (FADEC) will have control system software which will be specifically developed by Turbomeca for matching its single engine application on the LUH. The helicopter will feature a dual channel FADEC along with an additional back up channel to provide extra safety margin for single engine operation (an important feature at high altitudes). Turbomeca will also develop the back up control and perform other minor modifications as required by HAL. HAL's light helicopter will have an advantage over older designs as it will feature a highly agile rotor system and composite rotor blades for low maintenance. Critical aspects like the rotor system, transmission, engine and glass cockpit are state-of-the-art designs. This is important when you consider that the LUH will be in service till at least 2050, if not more!

kshirin · Post by **kshirin** » 15 Jul 2013 03:29

[quote="Philip"]I am really appalled.When the armed forces have plumped for the Dhruv in the hundreds after years of serious ,intense testing under the world's worst conditions,the MHA want something "better"! For what? Where are the MHA honchos going to use these helos? In Siachen,or merely transporting the precious backsides of the sh*tty MHA bosses from one air-con vehicle to another.As Kersi rightly said,the one aerobatic manoeuvre that the Dhruv cannot perform is that of the "kickback"! Ottavio Quattrochi,RIP,India is still with you in spirit.This is omne clear case where the PM/DM /FM should firmly put their feet down and force the MHA to buy the Dhruv to promote indigenisation.[/quote]

What can one do? Its not just LUH, there is an array of neo-liberal measures across the economy which is undermining Indian self reliance. And BR should be concerned with those too as I saw elsewhere in this Forum that China has created a robust industrial base (which is useful for defence production) so we give up self reliance in one sector at the peril of self reliance in defence production. It is hoped MOD will come down on this capriciousness. And let us hope the report itself is incorrect.

putnanja · Post by **putnanja** » 15 Jul 2013 06:51

Dhruv delivers but doubters persist

Vivek K · Post by **Vivek K** » 15 Jul 2013 07:41

In a corrupt country as ours, anything is possible. We are all like this onlee! Jai Hind! Mera Bharat Mahaan! Thank god Gandhi was cremated and not buried else his turning in his grave would have caused us a lot of problems!!

Vivek K · Post by **Vivek K** » 15 Jul 2013 07:44

All the Chinese and Pukis need is to bribe us!! Why buy expensive weapons?

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 15 Jul 2013 08:20

To understand China's amazing growth and self-reliance,one must not forget two factors.First,the zeal and continuous focus on the goal of self-reliance,modernisation by begging,borrowing or stealing.Any means to achieve the goal for the dragon's voracious appetite.The last action is the key.Every Chinaman abroad,whether a tourist,worker or scholar is expected to "bring home the bacon",in a manner of speaking.They have stolen the most heavily guarded military secrets of the US and west through espionage,agents as well as cyber crime.Just one financial institution in the west receives more than 7,000 cyber attacks every day from the Chinese.A German co. a few years ago found that a Chinaman who spent just one week in their HQ,swiped their entire tech secrets.Germans lose billions of # every year to Chinese cybercrime.

The next factor,is that the Chinese do not put all their eggs into just one basket.When they develop mil. systems,they usually have two types in parallel,lest one fail.So you see several types of Chinese aircraft (two stealth fighter prototypes),ships,subs,etc.They have a healthy list of aero-engines under development and manufacture and have progressed beyond the stage of cloning mainly Russian eqpt.This is where we are absolutely asinine,deliberately so,so that vast budgets for decades can be wasted on "tech. demonstrators" and awarding Padma awards! The system is so cretinous that even the chance to give the pvt. sector the light transport aircraft req. is facing problems with such a small number of aircraft to be built at home,and a huge cost of setting up the infrastructure to the cost of the winner/loser! Since we operate about a 100+ HS-748s,the order should've been for at least 100 built in India.Look at how China has set up an entire A-320 plant for its own needs ,which has given its aerospace industry and industry in general a massive boost.

The Light helo requirement will eventually be in the hundreds.There is enough room for a foreign type as well as our desi version when it eventually arrives.Given the huge civilian demand,civilian requirements too would be served.

Kartik · Post by **Kartik** » 15 Jul 2013 09:43

Philip wrote:Back to the LCH topic.One can understand the argument about buying more Dhruvs until the decision on the LUH is made or our desi one arrives,but it will not do for the IN as the Dhruv didn't fit the bill,was too large for IN's shipboard hangars,etc.The All-3s/Chetaks tech wise are also obsolete given the expanding threat from quieter conventional subs.The contest reported to be yet again cancelled is between the Eurocopter Fennec and Kamov's Sergei.

the IN wasn't a customer for the LUH project anyway. They've got their own competitions going on and neither the Fennec nor the Sergei are part of those. Specialised naval helicopters like the NH-90 and S-70B are part of the first competition and the MH-60R, EC725 and NH-90 are the contenders for the other NMRH competition. So cancelling the LUH competition does not in any way effect them.

This a report by the "F" mag on the choice of engine for the LUH and other details.If the details about IOC and production are correct,then the armed forces will have to wait for at least 4 years before the first LUH arrives.

Hindustan Aeronautics Limited's (HAL) Light Utility Helicopter (LUH) will now fly with Turbomeca's Shakti 1U engine, a derivative of the Shakti 1H1 engine used on Dhruv. Turbomeca has emerged as the successful bidder in the global tender process over the Rolls Royce Honeywell LHTEC CTS-800 engine. Selection of the engine was the main constraint in the progress of the project which is now in the final stage.

HAL received its formal project sanction in February 2009, and early plans called for Initial Operational Clearance (IOC) to be achieved by February, 2014. This was projected based on the assumption that the Shakti Engine used in the Dhruv Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH) would also be used in the LUH after due development and certification. This was not the case and after problems cropped up, HAL had to go through the entire engine selection again through a global tender process.

Now that Turbomeca has emerged the winner, the IOC is planned to be obtained by 2017, and HAL is looking to build all 187 helicopters in seven years. This would mean that deliveries would be complete by 2024-25. No Limited Series Production (LSP) helicopters are planned to be built and the LUH will directly enter series production after the three prototypes are built and test flown.

The Shakti 1U engine’s Full Authority Digital Engine Control (FADEC) will have control system software which will be specifically developed by Turbomeca for matching its single engine application on the LUH. The helicopter will feature a dual channel FADEC along with an additional back up channel to provide extra safety margin for single engine operation (an important feature at high altitudes). Turbomeca will also develop the back up control and perform other minor modifications as required by HAL. HAL's light helicopter will have an advantage over older designs as it will feature a highly agile rotor system and composite rotor blades for low maintenance. Critical aspects like the rotor system, transmission, engine and glass cockpit are state-of-the-art designs. This is important when you consider that the LUH will be in service till at least 2050, if not more!

From this report, it appears that there is really no need whatsoever to throw precious foreign exchange on the Fennec or the Sergei. Order more Dhruvs, and slowly start retiring the oldest Cheetah and Chetaks. By 2024 if all goes well, the entire LUH fleet will be in service and the IAF and IA will be saved from the hassle of having 2 different types of LUH in service. There will be cost savings on maintenance and training of ground and flight crew as a result of commonality.

member_20453 · Post by **member_20453** » 15 Jul 2013 13:11

The 197 light helo deal should be scrapped and LUH should be procured possibly in numbers greater than 400-500

Dhruv should be ordered as well with well over 500 units as well. Dhruv is one of the best helos in its class and should be supported by all means.

SagarAg · Post by **SagarAg** » 15 Jul 2013 19:52

Septimus P. wrote:The 197 light helo deal should be scrapped and LUH should be procured possibly in numbers greater than 400-500

Dhruv should be ordered as well with well over 500 units as well. Dhruv is one of the best helos in its class and should be supported by all means.

+1

Its a matter of believing in our desi/ indigenous products. Once IAF starts believing in capabilities of indigenous products made by HAL/ADA the rest will follow.
As far as technical support /after sales service by HAL/ADA is concerned, I know its an issue as IAF have again and again complained about it but once HAL/ADA gets firm order for bulk deliveries by IAF a dedicated TAC team will definitely be setup to deal with it. Everything will fall in place its just a matter of believing in swadesi products and investing in them.

PS: Its just my POV, something else may be the reasons which I am unaware about.

KrishnaK · Post by **KrishnaK** » 15 Jul 2013 21:37

Specialised naval helicopters like the NH-90 and S-70B are part of the first competition and the MH-60R, EC725 and NH-90 are the contenders for the other NMRH competition.

Why is the IN going for 2 different competitions here ? Are the requirements different ?

Katare · Post by **Katare** » 15 Jul 2013 22:49

500 LUH from HAL will take 15 to 25 years. By that time the need would have grown to 1000 aircrafts. So HAL would have orders for more aircrafts than it can deliver but IAF/IA would be crippled if this 197 LUH deal gets cancled again. You can get desi maal only if it's available, ALH is way behind the delivery schedule so is Rudra, LCH and LUH.

I think we need to keep importing at some minimum level while indigenous capabilities and capacities are being built.

tushar_m · Post by **tushar_m** » 15 Jul 2013 23:17

LUH doesn't look 10-15 years to me

engine already there , most of structural work done , prototype maybe ready by now

don't know if this is a prototype , but it look like one

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 16 Jul 2013 08:46

Just a week ago I asked whether we should be watching our MIG-21s crashing while waiting for our desi projects to arrive,like the LCA.Tragically,a MIG-21 Bison recently crashed on landing killing the pilot.Now these are the newer MIGs which have been upgraded to Bison std.,not the earlier legacy MIG-21s still flying and the type (Bisons) will be with us says the ACM until 2020 because of delays with the LCA,etc.Now there have been quality concerns with HAL built aircraft for decades.While one is not jumping the gun and blaming this latest crash on the manufacturer,just keeping alive aircraft which should've been pensioned off a long time ago,is also difficult to maintain with the lack of spares and is taking its toll on valuable human lives.

Should we have the same situation with the All-3/Chetaks,waiting for the LUH to arrive? As Katare said,we must have a balanced approach to immediately acquire numbers to fill critical gaps ,while remaining focussed on our desi designs,giving them the full support required.The UKhand disaster shows how unexpected crises will put a strain upon the existing fleet.Take the MI-26s being used to ferry heavy eqpt. to the disaster areas.There are very few of them still operational (those who fly into a particular northern base will know just how many are unserviceable) and we desperately need more of them for our border logistic requirements,let alone the Chinooks,which are much smaller.

Further delays in the light helo contest will see a similar situ with what is happening to the MIGs happen to the overworked fleet of helos in service.The DRDO may have the luxury of infinite time schedules,with no accountability,after all their babus also do not have to operate the aircraft and systems or putting their lives at risk,but the armed forces have to!

nachiket · Post by **nachiket** » 16 Jul 2013 08:57

Tushar, that's only a mockup, not a prototype.

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 16 Jul 2013 10:18

The HAL LUH's specs are interesting,passr. capacity 6,in between the Fennec and Sergei ,while the service ceiling is 6500m,500m more than the Sergei,while the Fennec is way behind.However its range is just 350km,when compared with 600/650 for the other two.It appears that it has been designed with high alt. missions as the priority,twin-engined to give it that extra power.

tushar_m · Post by **tushar_m** » 16 Jul 2013 11:07

Philip wrote:The HAL LUH's specs are interesting,passr. capacity 6,in between the Fennec and Sergei ,while the service ceiling is 6500m,500m more than the Sergei,while the Fennec is way behind.However its range is just 350km,when compared with 600/650 for the other two.It appears that it has been designed with high alt. missions as the priority,twin-engined to give it that extra power.

philip LUH is single engine

General characteristics

Crew: 2
Capacity: up to 6 passengers
Empty weight: 1,870 kg (4,123 lb)
Max takeoff weight: 3,015 kg (6,647 lb)
Powerplant: 1 × HAL/Turbomeca Shakti 1U turboshaft engine, 1,000 kW (1,300 hp)

Performance

Maximum speed: 330 km/h (205 mph; 178 kn)
Cruising speed: 240 km/h (149 mph; 130 kn)
Never exceed speed: 330 km/h (205 mph; 178 kn)
Range: 351 km; 189 nmi (218 mi)
Service ceiling: 6,492 m (21,300 ft)

John · Post by **John** » 16 Jul 2013 17:38

This is AJT all over again lets wait till LUH is in trials before jumping on bandwagon, remember all the Hawk bashing and Sitara has yet to see light of day. Nothing short of miracle will get IJT service any time before 2020 and HJT-39 is more or less dead.

Sagar G · Post by **Sagar G** » 16 Jul 2013 18:39

^^^ How so ???

Sagar G · Post by **Sagar G** » 16 Jul 2013 18:44

Philip wrote:Further delays in the light helo contest will see a similar situ with what is happening to the MIGs happen to the overworked fleet of helos in service.The DRDO may have the luxury of infinite time schedules,with no accountability,after all their babus also do not have to operate the aircraft and systems or putting their lives at risk,but the armed forces have to!

If the armed forces (read IAF and IA) know this very well then they should put there men behind supporting indigenous projects instead of doing lip service in the name of indigenization. LCA arriving within a decade of IAF's participation is pretty neat, had IAF been serious about LCA it would have participated since day one instead of coming online in 2006.

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 17 Jul 2013 02:02

Where have the armed forces been ever allowed to run the desi projects?! I have ad nauseum given details of how the IAF was deliberately kept out of the LCA project at the most crucial stage over a decade ago,and the advice (get the engine sorted out first,it is the weakest link in the chain) given in the last century ,crippled the project.The DRDO and babus do not want the armed forces to have the decisive say in weapon systems even though they are the end-users and the main stakeholders.As I've repeatedly said before,why is there no audit on the performance of the DRDO over the last few decades,successes and failures and the reasons for the same?

Take the Tatra scam for instance,who are primarily the crooks behind the scam,the forces or PSU honchos? It is only after Gen.VKS exposed the scam that we are now buying alternatives from Indian manufacturers.The GOI is trying to cover up the scam by now saying that Gen.VKS (whatever his failings is another matter) did not produce any "evidence" while Def.Min. AKA graphically described to parliament how he held his head in his hands when he learnt of the scam (and did nothing about it for a whole year)!

The armed forces are kept out of any input into strategic planning,that onerous task being left to babudom and the MEA,who are ready to gift away Indian territory to the Chinese,the Pakis,et al! How many chiefs/senior officers have said after retirement that they had little idea of the true capability of our nuclear deterrent and were in the dark about the same? Here is a quote from the Kargil review report,why Pak was so confident that it could win a war at Kargil:

http://www.rediff.com/news/2000/mar/01kargil.htm

Successive Indian Army chiefs and Directors General of Military Operations told the Committee that the idea of using India's conventional superiority did not arise for various reasons other than the nuclear factor.

The 1998 Pokhran tests were the outcome of a policy of consensus on nuclear weapons development among Prime Ministers belonging to the Congress, Janata Dal, United Democratic Front and BJP. For reasons of security, none of these Prime Ministers took anyone other than Chairmen of the Atomic Energy Commission (not all), and the Scientific Adviser to the Defence Minister into confidence. The Chiefs of Staff, senior Cabinet Ministers and senior civil servants were kept out of the loop.

The nuclear posture adopted by successive Prime Ministers thus put the Indian Army at a disadvantage vis-a-vis its Pakistani counterpart. While the former was in the dark about India's nuclear capability, the latter as the custodian of Pakistani nuclear weaponry was fully aware of its own capability. Three former Indian Chiefs of Army Staff expressed unhappiness about this asymmetric situation.

Successive Indian Prime Ministers failed to take their own colleagues, the major political parties, the Chiefs of Staff and the Foreign Secretaries into confidence on the nature of Pakistan's nuclear threat and the China-Pakistan nuclear axis. The Prime Ministers, even while supporting the weapons programme, kept the intelligence and nuclear weapons establishments in two watertight compartments.

Foreign policy was being conducted without Foreign Ministers and Indian diplomats being apprised of the nature of the threat to the country or of India's own nuclear capability. It is quite likely that this secretiveness on the part of the Indian Prime Ministers and the country's inability to exercise its conventional superiority could have confirmed Pakistan in its belief that its nuclear deterrent had indeed been effective in Kashmir since 1990 and it could therefore pursue the proxy war and the Kargil adventure with impunity on the basis of its own prescribed rules of the game.

Anyway,this thread is about the need for a light helo,articulated as far back as 2003! It is a sad commentary on the GOI of the day which has been in power for a decade,that it has done b*gger all in taking a decision after all this time! HAL's helo division has achieved success with the Dhruv,let's see whether it can repeat that success with the LUH in the specified timeframe,which has been pointed out still leaves the forces in the lurch.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 17 Jul 2013 07:43

John wrote:This is AJT all over again lets wait till LUH is in trials before jumping on bandwagon, remember all the Hawk bashing and Sitara has yet to see light of day. Nothing short of miracle will get IJT service any time before 2020 and HJT-39 is more or less dead.

in case of LUH the two biggest problems - engine + gearbox and cockpit+avioics is proven and sourced from Dhruv which is already in service so I forsee less risk or chance of delays of HAL devotes the proper cycles on this. and they have data bank from flight test pgms of Dhruv , Rudra and LCH to steal from and predict / optimize things.

imo its a no brainer and we should go for it , the only thing which scares me is there was a report that French (turbomeca) were demanding a arm and leg for single engine mods to Ardigen and "HAL was looking at other engine options" - DONT DO IT ! pay 15% extra but use the proven drivetrain instead of tortuous process of selecting another maker, another engine, another set of problems....

member_22605 · Post by **member_22605** » 17 Jul 2013 08:46

Singha sir, Actually the gear box is different in LUH as there is no IDS. The Engine is slightly different from the one used in ALH/LCH. The cockpit is also very different or at least envisaged to be as the aim is to have fully indigenous systems onboard.
But having said all this, the ALH gear box is probably the most complex ever on any helicopter and the LUH's in comparison is relatively less complex. The ALH experience will surely reduce the development time of the LUH and i'm sure it will arrive in time atleast by the time the first imported ones arrive (if at all

)

putnanja · Post by **putnanja** » 17 Jul 2013 08:54

As per latest reports (It is linked earlier in this thread), Turbomeca won the tender for supplying engines to LUH. It will be a slightly modified version of the Shakti engine.

Turbomeca initialy did quote an arm and a leg, and that's why HAL was forced to go down the tender route, which eventually Turbomeca won. Anyway, it was always theirs to lose, so no surprises there. The only drawback is that it added something like 6 months- 1 year delay in the program.

RaghuK, what is the current status of LUH? Is it proceeding smoothly?

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 17 Jul 2013 09:52

Coming back to quality issues with HAL,mentioned earlier,today's TOI has the front page headline,"Flying MIG against right to life",by a serving Wg. Cdr.Kalia in court,which has directed the govt. to provide details of all crashes to date,case posted for Dec.

In Kalia's acse,he ejected and suffered debilitating injuries preventing him from flying and doing normal day-to-day tasks.His RTI revealed that it was due to a defect due to poor manufacturing at HAL's facility.Wg.Cdr.Kalia recd. scant help from the govt. it is alleged.

Further details are in the Ind.Mil.Aviation td.

Indranil · Post by **Indranil** » 17 Jul 2013 09:57

Raghu,

HAL displayed the MGB at AI'13, but some reporters claimed that most of the internal parts would be imported. Please shed some light if you can.

Thank you.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 17 Jul 2013 11:45

for the protos they could rig up similar avionics as Dhruv if not all domestic systems are certified yet. a scout avionics pkg in the mould of french gazelle/US kiowa should be planned for from day1 to help in the LOH role - a nose kit & coms gear borrowed from Rudra if a roof mounted thing is deemed risky.

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 17 Jul 2013 12:43

Here is a very good feature on the Dhruv from "Livefist" from the horses' mouth itself,on the entire project history ,difficulties faced,and eventual success.It should be read to understand the complexities in designing and developing any new type of helo,especially those with weight constraints and high performance specs.One of the main reasons for Dhruv's success was the very high futuristic specs demanded by the IAF,which eventually resulted in a very good helo beings produced.However,because of differing reqs.,the IN's version was not successful,a warning that one helo cannot fit the bill for all usages and users.

Apologies if previously posted,a must read.I am only quoting the final analysis with the positive facts.
http://www.livefistdefence.com/2013/02/ ... -hand.html

ALH Dhruv: The Truth, First Hand
The following paper by HAL's Group Captain (Retd) Hari Nair is to be presented at the Aero India 2013 seminar this week. It is, perhaps, the first brutally honest look at India's Advanced Light Helicopter Dhruv programme. A fantastic, enlightening read:

17. The Positive Aspects. Criticism of the ALH project in the media, think-tanks and even official ones such as the CAG report sometimes have extreme negative undertones. Such criticisms that only harp on all things negative often leaves one with a feeling of self-flagellation that does little good and more harm to our collective psyche. The decibel pitch of media and think-tank criticisms are curiously lowered and often muted especially when accidents or incidents involve imported helicopter types. We perhaps need to look at our foreign counterparts and emulate their sense of balanced criticism of their country’s projects, especially in the aftermath of unfortunate accidents or incidents. A balanced view requires taking in the positive aspects too and without resorting to blowing the proverbial trumpet, a simple ‘list’ is as under:

(a) The ALH Mk-III with Shakti engines has exceptional high altitude performance. It exceeds the original ASR high-altitude payload-cum-landing requirement at 6 km altitude at high temperatures and is perhaps the only helicopter in existence worldwide in this AUW class category that can fulfil the requirement.

(b) The ALH rotors have good control power that translate into good manoeuvrability and has added benefits of excellent handling at high altitudes. Its manoeuvrability, handling and high altitude performance is better than any other helicopter in current Service inventory, including Attack Helicopters.

(c) The Mk III especially has excellent power-to-weight ratio that along with its good control power lends to easy handling.

(d) It has among the best in-class cabin volume with seating for 14 fully equipped troops. In fact, the cabin space is comparable with even the 9-tonne AUW class Black Hawk.

(e) The ALH has a very rugged airframe, mainly due due to its crashworthy design. This has been proven during a couple of instances of mishandling. In one instance involving the civil wheeled variant ALH, the crew mis-handled and entered a state of vortex ring during a routine maintenance sortie. The aircraft impacted the ground with a vertical acceleration well in excess of 14.5 G, yet the crew and passengers survived with relatively minor injuries. There was negligible compression of the cabin and cockpit area, which were largely intact and the heavy masses atop (engines and MGB) did not penetrate the cabin. The civil certification authority (DGCA) investigator remarked on the ruggedness of the ALH and said that had it instead been any another civil type, the outcome for the crew and passengers would have been very different.

(f) It is cleared for IFR, because of its well integrated autopilot, good avionics fit and redundancy in critical systems.

(g) Its tail rotor has excellent control power, a broad operating envelope and complements the main rotor in manoeuvrability. An infamous issue that afflicts some other current generation helicopter types in military and civil use in our country is LTE (Loss of Tail rotor Effectiveness), which is actually a design deficiency couched in technical jargon. The ALH tail rotor does not have any such issues throughout its operating envelope, as its performance is tailored to meet the ASR specification of generating and controlling 60°/s rate spot turns in hover.

Conclusion

18. The ALH (or Dhruv) is an ambitious first-time project to design and build a common helicopter platform catering to all the requirements of the Army, Navy and IAF. The roles it was envisaged to fulfil in different variants were extremely varied, ranging from landing at 6 km altitude to armed, night attack, Anti-Submarine, Anti-Surface Warfare, SAR, troop carriage and utility roles. The wide range of envisaged sensors and weapons included 20 mm cannon, anti-armour missiles, torpedoes, Exocet-class missiles and depth charges. The Army-IAF variant was to have EW suite and advanced sighting and aiming systems and the Navy variant was to have dipping sonar, surveillance radar, sonobuoys and MAD. The Navy also wanted capability to change roles in quick-time (capability to remove ASR equipment in three hours). The agility and manoeuvrability requirements specified were challenging. These spectrum-sweeping requirements were attempts to achieve exceptional performances in all roles through variants derived from a single base platform.

19. Need to Keep Requirements Realistic and Focussed. It is undoubtedly a foregone conclusion that any helicopter mainly built to ASR 2/79 is bound to have exceptional performance and the ALH owes a lot to the guiding framework that it was designed and built under. However, the fact remains that in hindsight, the total expectations raised by the NSR and ASR are not achievable even today, by a single platform. Even certain sub-clauses in the ASR, which were subsequently moderated, are also not achievable by a single platform. Given the above, there is a need for dialogue with industry experts on current and short-term technology levels. A realistic and formal assessment of what contemporary technology is capable of and what technological advancements in the short-term may achieve, is necessary to temper the specified requirements that are put forth. There is also the need to focus on specific key areas of importance, rather than put forth requirements for all envisaged roles and performance points.

20. Limit New Concepts in First-Time Projects. The ALH design incorporated several innovative concepts that were being implemented for the first-time. When each is viewed in isolation, it appears a logical new-tech choice for a modern helicopter to meet the specified requirement. However, for a first-time project being attempted, there were too many new concepts being tried out. Also, MBB either over-estimated their capabilities to implement all of these or had perhaps also attempted to experiment on some of these concepts at the cost of the ALH project. The fact is that there were severe delays to the project mainly attributable to severe problems in some of the new concepts being implemented and at certain points in time, the nature of some of the failures had even threatened to derail the project altogether. The lesson is thus quite clear – even with good design consultancy, limit the number of new concepts being implemented, especially for a first-time project.

21. Accountability of Design Consultant. The abrupt departure of MBB during 1994-95 was due to non-renewal of contract and this was at the time when flight testing had picked up and all the problems related to some of the new concepts being implemented, especially the MGB, ARIS and increase in Empty Weight had clearly manifested. HAL designers, with no previous experience were now suddenly required to tackle these issues, which led to further delays. Ideally, MBB should have been held accountable and asked to stay on to rectify these difficult design deficiencies. They could have been contracted to stay on, until the design was successfully transferred to the regular production line. The extension contract document could have been structured to include these aspects and also progressively reduce their involvement as the project matured towards production.

22. Initial Failures of MGB & ARIS. The initial failures of the MGB and ARIS and subsequent delays it caused the project were directly linked to the decision to let the design consultant go away without accountability for their these major failures. Both designs required extensive re-work by our in-house design teams without previous experience in such systems. There is also the need to independently analyse and audit to the extent possible before any project go-ahead, the risks and feasibility of implementing each new concept and whether the design consultant is attempting to experiment at our cost on critical systems, especially if they are known to be working on a similar class of aircraft in parallel.

23. Need for Balanced Action on Weight Reduction. Almost any aviation project undergoes a struggle in the design-to-prototype phases to keep weights down. This requires definitive action to control and correct. The case of the ALH project is perhaps no different. Ultimately, the ALH Mk-III has outperformed the dreaded ‘corner point’ 6 km altitude specification of the ASR. What however needs to be learnt is the need to maintain a balanced and moderated action on weight savings versus structural modifications, so as to avoid the cases in the ALH when certain weight-saving modifications were subsequently required to be undone because these caused other problems of vibrations, etc.

24. Time Gap Required Between LSPs and Production Aircraft. Handing over a small fleet of Limited Series Production (LSP) to the three Services was a good decision as the problems with operating the helicopter in their respective operational environment came to light. However, the lesson learnt here is that it is prudent to have an appropriate pause in the production line between the LSPs and production aircraft to enable incorporation of the appropriate remedial measures on the production units.

25. Large Scale Powered Model Testing. Helicopter design is turning to use of large-scale, powered (rotating rotors) models complete with scale replicas of fuselage, horizontal stabiliser, etc, in wind tunnels to study and optimise the design of various components of the design. This reduces developmental and especially flight testing effort to identify the optimum configuration. To move with the times, we also need to think seriously and move towards establishing such facilities locally for future designs, since attempting to use such facilities abroad for continued periods of testing for future projects is not an easy option.

26. Nurturing Local Vendors for Long Term. We need to seriously take action for nurturing local vendor facilities for complete systems, including complex systems such as the MGB. Our rules and regulations need to be appropriately tuned to the real-world scenario in aviation, where niche speciality is the norm and long-term relationships are the rule with specialist and mostly ‘single-vendors’.

27. User Project Monitoring. User project monitoring has been stringent and detailed. However, there needs to be consistency in monitoring, especially during critical transition phases and monitoring needs to be maintained throughout the duration of the project till production has stabilised.

28. Need for Balanced Criticism. Instead of embarking on only negative and fault-finding missions, there is the need for a systematic, objective and impartial analyses of any indigenous project. Whereas failures definitely need to be highlighted along with reasons, it is equally important to impartially list out the achievements that also need to be duly acknowledged.

Gp Capt (Retd) Hari Nair VM, has been associated with the Dhruv (ALH) programme since 1992 and has commanded a combined Chetak-Cheetah unit in the Western sector. He formed and commanded the Sarang Helicopter Display Team comprising Dhruv helicopters, during 2003-2005. He joined Flight Ops (RW), HAL in 2009 and has clocked over 6,000 hours of accident or incident-free flight hours. He currently test-flies the Light Combat Helicopter as well.

rohitvats · Post by **rohitvats** » 17 Jul 2013 15:47

Excellent pictures of Mi-26 from Livefist:

http://www.livefistdefence.com/2013/07/ ... north.html

Image of fuselage interior:

vina · Post by **vina** » 17 Jul 2013 17:07

Philip wrote:Need to Keep Requirements Realistic and Focussed. It is undoubtedly a foregone conclusion that any helicopter mainly built to ASR 2/79 is bound to have exceptional performance and the ALH owes a lot to the guiding framework that it was designed and built under. However, the fact remains that in hindsight, the total expectations raised by the NSR and ASR are not achievable even today, by a single platform. Even certain sub-clauses in the ASR, which were subsequently moderated, are also not achievable by a single platform. Given the above, there is a need for dialogue with industry experts on current and short-term technology levels. A realistic and formal assessment of what contemporary technology is capable of and what technological advancements in the short-term may achieve, is necessary to temper the specified requirements that are put forth. There is also the need to focus on specific key areas of importance, rather than put forth requirements for all envisaged roles and performance points.

This is not a recent talk, but was already presented earlier . I think the keystone of his entire presentation was in this point.

In plain Inglees, what it means is that the Army, Air Force and Navy need to stop brochure reading, actually think more in terms of what they want , how are they going to use it and grade features into must haves, desired and good to have and not load specs to the gill and demand best in class in every area (Spectrum sweeping performance as the ALH team calls it) .

In more plain Inglees, the defense forces need to get their actually stop removing their brains with their hats when they take it off to go to bed, but actually remove just the hats alone and keep their brains and think on their own for a change, rather than reading endless brochures and mechanical collation of claims.

In fact the LCA too seems to struggle from all the brochuritis got from combining the best features of the Mirage 2000 and the Mig 29 and the F16 (from brochures,the other two from experience), thrown in, and the single platform asked to beat all of them with a nice big margin thrown in for good measure.

Manish_Sharma · Post by **Manish_Sharma** » 17 Jul 2013 17:33

Philip wrote: (a) The ALH Mk-III with Shakti engines has exceptional high altitude performance. It exceeds the original ASR high-altitude payload-cum-landing requirement at 6 km altitude at high temperatures and is perhaps the only helicopter in existence worldwide in this AUW class category that can fulfil the requirement.

(d) It has among the best in-class cabin volume with seating for 14 fully equipped troops. In fact, the cabin space is comparable with even the 9-tonne AUW class Black Hawk.

What's the full form of 'AUW'? What does it mean?

Sagar G · Post by **Sagar G** » 17 Jul 2013 21:30

Philip wrote:Where have the armed forces been ever allowed to run the desi projects?!

You still are stuck with this same old crap. As a matter of fact they still aren't but even then we have had many successful military projects by now so this "reason" of your's is well past it's sell date. Now you can stop trying to sell it.

Philip wrote:I have ad nauseum given details of how the IAF was deliberately kept out of the LCA project at the most crucial stage over a decade ago

This clearly shows us that a lie even if told for a decade/century/millennia is still a lie only. Here is what an IAF man has to say about the customer i.e. IAF

CHALLENGES IN DESIGN TO DEPLOYMENT
CRITICAL LESSONS FROM THE D&D OF LCA

(KA Muthana)
Air Commodore

Place: Bangalore.
Date: 18 Oct 2012.

7. Customer Involvement. During the design and development process itself, it is vital that comprehensive knowledge of aviation in general and military aviation in particular is made available to the program. Scientists and design engineers do not have that knowledge. The Indian Air Force is the only repository of comprehensive military aviation knowledge in this country. Either its expertise was not sought or it was denied. Also we probably have the only aviation companies in the world that do not have aviators embedded into design teams. As a result, while the designers concentrated on getting the technology airborne, the design necessities of turning the aircraft into a maintainable, deployable and employable weapon platform were missed to a large extent. Originally a reluctant customer, the Indian Air Force involved itself sufficiently only after contracting for supply of the aircraft in 2006. It was late in the program and hundreds of ‘Requests for Action’ had to be raised in order to retrieve the situation to some extent, but this lead to time and cost overruns.

So Philip either you update yourself or stop lying around.

Philip wrote:and the advice (get the engine sorted out first,it is the weakest link in the chain) given in the last century ,crippled the project.

If that advice was listened too then LCA would have surely been killed since we still do not have the said engine but because we went forward with that handicap we have developed an aeronautic base, based on which we can look forward to creating better systems for IAF and engine wasn't the only problem as you are making it out to be so again I ask you to update yourself. The AI-13 seminar presentation from which I quoted shall be a good start for you.

Philip wrote:The DRDO and babus do not want the armed forces to have the decisive say in weapon systems even though they are the end-users and the main stakeholders.

This will be the equation in the future as well since we aren't a military dictatorship so either IA and IAF learn to work with the present system like the IN does or work towards a military coup so that they can buy whatever they want with no opposition or grow up and start doing there part honestly instead of providing lip service. Being the "end user" doesn't make them some sort of unquestionable gods that there views and words become the only right one around. If even after all these years you don't know then let me break the news for you that our defence forces function under the civilian leadership and the civilian leadership dictates to them what they should do and what they shouldn't so please preach the "end-users and the main stakeholders" argument when India doesn't remain a democracy or our armed forces stop taking there orders from the civilian leadership.

Philip wrote:As I've repeatedly said before,why is there no audit on the performance of the DRDO over the last few decades,successes and failures and the reasons for the same?

You live in India or what ??? Ever heard of CAG which the DDM loves to quote and preaches how DRDO is a colossal failure and wastage of taxpayer money only.

Philip wrote:Take the Tatra scam for instance,who are primarily the crooks behind the scam,the forces or PSU honchos? It is only after Gen.VKS exposed the scam that we are now buying alternatives from Indian manufacturers.The GOI is trying to cover up the scam by now saying that Gen.VKS (whatever his failings is another matter) did not produce any "evidence" while Def.Min. AKA graphically described to parliament how he held his head in his hands when he learnt of the scam (and did nothing about it for a whole year)!

Shooting yourself in the foot Philip ???? How did the scam came into public knowledge ??? Who is Lt Gen (Retd) Tejinder Singh ?? What role he played in the said scam that you brought up to show how our army is "sidelined" when it comes to listening to them.

Vipul · Post by **Vipul** » 17 Jul 2013 22:04

Happy hours in HAL over Dhruv’s Char Dham Op.

The designers, engineers, test pilots and the maintenance crew at Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) are a delighted lot, thanks to stupendous search and rescue (SAR) missions undertaken by the Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH-Dhruv), during the recent Op Rahat in Char Dham.

Dhruv’s compact size and high agility enabled pilots to fly in most of the narrow, high altitude valleys of Uttarakhand.

“Even the Mi-17s could not negotiate the hostile terrain. Dhruv’s best-in-class cabin space can accomodate 14 fully equipped troops, while its sliding and large rear clamshell doors provide easy loading of stretchers\bulky loads. The chopper’s high-power engines and hinge-less composite main rotors too came handy during operations in Charm Dham. Other helicopters might have powerful engines, but the control power of their conventional rotors reduces drastically with altitude. Dhruv’s rotors are designed to operate in typical Indian extreme weather conditions,” an HAL official told ‘Express’.

During a rescue sortie at Kedarnath, a Dhruv airlifted 17 passengers from the high altitude helipad, whereas the much larger Mi-17 airlifted fewer passengers from there.

In another specific case, a Dhruv landed on a high altitude postage-stamp sized clearing to pick up stranded people. The crew of a much smaller civil Bell-407 was not able to land there.

HAL’s technical crew too played a role in keeping the machines in good shop, at very short notice. “There were no major down-times or maintenance issues reported during the operations. Precautionary maintenance back-up was also given by our crew stationed at ALGs (advanced landing ground) for the rescue operations. Dhruv has definitely carved a niche for itself in the weight gap between the Chetak and Mi 17,” sources said.

As part of Op Rahat, 24 Dhruvs (18 from IAF and six from Army) flew over 550 hours from multiple locations in the SAR role.

member_22539 · Post by **member_22539** » 18 Jul 2013 07:31

I for my life cant swallow how these ruski maal peddlers keep vomiting the same lies again and again. Are they counting on the fact that new people visit these forums and they will get to fool them? How can they single-handedly fight off the majority, how do they get the time for this? Must be some job with a lot of free time.

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 18 Jul 2013 11:53

Sagar,careful with your language.You can counter my points in a more temperate manner as everyone is entitled to his or her opinion,otherwise the forum will end up into becoming a disrespectful slanging match.Moderators pl. advise other posters.Suffice it to say that I have a very distinguished AM,VCoAS to back up what I've said in full. On this issue my posts over aeons on the subject with facts are very comprehensive.Calling the truth "lies" doesn't dilute the truth one iota.I stand by what I've said,others may differ on the subject,so be it.

Of course you have the CAG reports,but these relate to items/projects individually,and from time to time,but a comprehensive audit specifically of the entire working of the institution,successes and failures of the DRDO and remedial measures to be taken is badly needed if we are to hasten indigenisation.What was the last figure officially given in parliament of the % of indigenisation? Was it not around "27%" only ? How on earth are we going to accelerate the design,development and production of indigenous weapon systems when we are faced with constant delays in almost every project? HAL has only now realised that "production" of the LCA is a technology in itself that it needs to master! That too after decades of producing so many types of aircraft under licence from both east and west.

What Vina has said "brochuritis" in determining specs is a very valid point,especially overburdening a system expecting it to behave like a "magic bullet" .However,in the full article on the Dhruv,the Wingco did stress that it was because of the very high performance specs demanded by the IAF that eventually a world class helo was developed.He says that had the specs been average,an average product would've resulted!

The art is therefore therefore the ability to draw up futuristic performance requirements,anticipating (achievable) technological developments to fructify during the developmental timeframe,within budget,plus the built in capacity for upgrades during the product's lifespan of say approx. 40 years for aircraft. The point I've continually stressed is that unless the end-user is responsible for preparing the brief,and being an embedded part of the team from beginning to end,results will be patchy.Why is the IN more successful than the other two services in indigenisation? It is because the warships are primarily designed by the naval design teams. Where they have experienced delays is with the PSU shipyards and development of weapon systems and sensors which we do not produce at home.If some of the tech. to be developed are beyond the capacity of indigenous efforts,or timeframes start slipping,a search abroad should be made for alternatives or specs modified for the moment.Even here,anticipating hurdles/roadblockes in arrival of critical components (like the engines for the LCA) and remedial measures must stick to their respective deadlines.

Ramanna mentioned a long time ago about western efforts of the same,establishing bodies responsible for identifying futuristic cutting/bleeding-edge tech required decades later,and the efforts needed to achieve results.Perhaps we should also take a look at other nations pursuing similar objectives-that is an FGFA,and learn from their experience.The examples where there is more open knowledge and debate are with the programmes of Japan and SoKo for their stealth fighters,along with those of the US,Russia and China.I mentioned the instance of China in a post where they develop two systems almost simultaneously-as the Soviets used to do developing aircraft from both the MIG and Sukhoi bureaus,so that at least one will succeed as planned.

Reg.helicopter development,given the large number of medium and specialised helos for the IN required,why we have not requested TOT for the same is a Q to be asked.The IN requires a huge number of twin-engined multi-role helos to replace IN Sea KIngs.We are now planning to acquire around 100 medium sized 8t helos.We have also been importing hundreds of MI-8/17s,which we 've been operating for decades.We could've established a local manufacturing unit at HAL.

vina · Post by **vina** » 18 Jul 2013 14:32

Philip wrote:What Vina has said "brochuritis" in determining specs is a very valid point,especially overburdening a system expecting it to behave like a "magic bullet" .However,in the full article on the Dhruv,the Wingco did stress that it was because of the very high performance specs demanded by the IAF that eventually a world class helo was developed.He says that had the specs been average,an average product would've resulted!

Yeah Admiral. That is the key here. If you want a product that would have stretched the limit of MBB and Zahnradfabrik Fredreichshafen (ZF) , the absolutely greatest transmission specialist that exists anywhere in the world and throw in the fact that the ALH was initially qualified with a LHTEC engine (a superb engine with extremely high power to weight ratio,and bleeding edge engine that blows away the competition to smithereens , pity about the sanctions) and the fact that the ALH had to be re qualified fully on an alternate it is only in the Shakti versions we are getting somewhat close to the performance of the LHTEC, the only way to square the circle is you will have a protracted development and testing period .

And that is exactly what has happened. You really should cut some slack for the HAL helicopter boys for the ALH and the ADA for the LCA. All in all, they have delivered an absolute beauty in the ALH, something we can all be very very proud of and I dare say the LCA will be a similar product as well. All that brouchuritis will need to some impressive performance, albeit after delays and heartburns.

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 18 Jul 2013 15:03

The helicopter division has always won praise for what it has achieved.I only wish that a better international push for the ALH is made after succeeding with the exports for Ecuador.There seems to be some sort of hesitation in the politico-babu nexus about exports of Indian arms. We are so lackadaisical about our successes.Not to ruffle the feathers of those who slip them sestertii under the table what?

vishvak · Post by **vishvak** » 18 Jul 2013 15:42

^^Great job by Dhruv and of course IAF personnel. When the need of hundreds of copters is/will be present such excellent machines can fill requirements well. That is not to undermine efforts from Russian copters that have various requirements to cater to. Very impressive overall on capabilities and efforts.

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 18 Jul 2013 22:03

The July issue of IMR reports that the IAF has asked the Def. Min.to speed up the purchase of the LUH.One MI-17 crashed during the rescue efforts at UKhand.The MOD have given no reasons for the delay.Trials have been completed.An IA official said that the delay is over 7 years.Av total of 384 helos are required for both the IA and IAF.1897 to be bought and the rest to be made by HAL under joint partnership.