Transport Aircraft pact inked

BANGALORE: Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL)  signed a tripartite general contract with United Aircraft Corporation -Transport Aircraft (UAC-TA), the Russian partner and their JV-Multirole Transport Aircraft Ltd (MTAL) for the Multirole Transport Aircraft (MTA) project on Monday.HAL is said to carry out design and development of its workshare of MTA at Aircraft R&D (ARDC) Centre at Bangalore while its Transport Aircraft Division (TAD) at Kanpur will manufacture the prototypes and subsequently, the serial production will be at Kanpur where dedicated  facilities are being set up, the company officials said. HAL’s other R&D Centres and manufacturing divisions will share development of systems & LRU’s and manufacture of components, sub-assemblies and composite structure.Indian and Russian governments had earlier signed an intergovernmental agreement for joint design, development and production of MTA on 50:50 sharing basis and had decided to form a JV between HAL, UAC-TA and Rosoboronexport to execute the project.The primary objective of this agreement is to achieve self-reliance in design and development and production of aircraft of this size. HAL stated that the aircraft would be designed for the roles of cargo/troop transportation; para-drop/air drop of supplies including Low Altitude Parachute Extraction System (LAPES) and is to be co-developed by HAL and UAC & Rosoboronexport of Russia through a joint venture company (JVC).HAL & UAC-TA has proposed to design, develop and produce Multirole Transport Aircraft in the 15-20 tonne class, jointly by Indian and Russian agencies to meet the requirement of 100 aircraft for the Russian Air Force, 45 aircraft for the IAF and 60 for the other countries.