India takes first steps towards own regional aircraft

India’s very own Regional Transport Aircraft, or RTA, is taking shape. This is notwithstanding the criticism heaped on the indigenous small passenger aircraft programmes like Saras and Hansa.

An RTA is said to be more suitable for a place like India where within a radius of 300-400 km of a big city you have another one.

The Rs 3,000-4,000 crore project was set-in motion a month earlier by the Defense Research and Development Organisation. National Aeronautics Limited is the nodal agency for the design of the aircraft. Hindustan Aeronautics Limited is expected to produce it.

The project is expected to give a shot in the arm to the aviation sector in the country. RTA is more suitable to reach places within a 500-km radius. The aircraft would have a range of 600 km to 800 km. HAL and the NAL have not decided on many aspects of the aircraft such as work share, funding and even whether the aircraft will have a turbo-prop or turbo jet engine. NAL had held discussions with Pratt & Whitney (Canada) and General Electric (US) for an engine.

Quest Global, the outsourced manufacturing company, is now in the design team for RTA. It hopes to be involved in the manufacturing too.

“It is the point-to-point connecting ability of RTAs that could make it popular today, and could hold sway in future too,” said Aravind Melligeri, Chairman & Co-founder of Quest Global. The hub-and-spoke model is not favoured by many who do not want to get on or off aircrafts to reach their destination.

About 400 of these regional jets are expected to be manufactured. Of these, 200 will go to the armed forces

Russians and Chinese too are right in front in developing the aircraft. Sukhoi Superjet-100 of Russia and the ARJ21 regional jet is being developed in China, by the AVIC-I Commercial Aircraft Company (ACAC), based in Shanghai, which is a consortium of six companies and aerospace research institutes carrying out the development and manufacture of the aircraft. But, warn experts, unlike the LCA programme, it should stick to the timeline set.

Technologies required would include a laminar flow wing, hydrophobic coatings, use of low cost composites, fly-by-wire controls, advanced avionics that will enable the use of ill-equipped airfields, integrated vehicle health monitoring among others, said an NAL source.

In August 2008 former President A P J Abdul Kalam said India can produce small passenger jets by 2020. For this, India needs to make optimum use of its technology in the aerospace sector.