Indigenous aircraft project a nonstartet

Chandigarh, December 29
An ambitious project by the National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL) to develop an indigenous basic trainer remains a non-starter as the laboratory has failed to develop indigenous components and sub-systems for the aircraft.
After 10 such trainers, christened Hansa were fabricated from imported components, NAL was left without any further orders for the market as the future commercial viability of the aircraft was not assessed.
Scrutiny by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) revealed that in the process of manufacturing the aircraft, NAL had imported all the components as the development work of the aircraft was initiated without developing the components. “Despite the first and foremost objective of indigenous development as envisaged, NAL continues to depend upon imported components for design and development,” CAG observed.
In June 1988, the government approved the project to develop a two-seater aircraft for training and remote sensing within 2-3 years at a cost of Rs 50 lakh. It was 10 years later that Hansa-3, meeting the desired weight parameters, was flight-tested. The CAG report revealed that NAL incurred an average manufacturing cost of over Rs 43 lakh per aircraft against an estimate of Rs 5 lakh.
Deficiencies in project management led to unfruitful expenditure and blockage of funds. Till June 2007, NAL imported 12 engines from Europe, out of which seven engines could not be used as there were no production orders or prospective buyers. Similarly, only six of the 11 propellers imported could be utilised within their stipulated shelf life of two years. Further, 29 components procured by NAL for product support and production of aircraft remained unutilised. CAG scrutiny also revealed that the performance of the aircraft left a lot to be desired. Of the 10 aircraft manufactured, eight were supplied to the Director General Civil Aviation for distribution to flying clubs.

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