HAL To Fit Foldable Rotors On Dhruv Helicopters To Enable Easy Landing On Smaller Decks Of Indian Navy Ships

Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) is working towards developing foldable rotors for the naval version of the Dhruv Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH), which will enable it to be accommodated in confined spaces on board the navy’s ships, reports DefenceNews.

This work to implement this new modification had been done at HAL’s Bengaluru facility. The Naval ALH Dhruv is presently utilised in search and rescue operations, where it has to land on either helicopter platforms on ships or on aircraft carriers, and in some cases, this is made difficult by the limited space available.

The ALH Dhruv has had some issues fitting properly on offshore patrol vessels, which have smaller decks, with the same problem being faced on INS Talwar class frigates.

The Navy brought up the problem around six months back, and thus HAL began to work on finding a solution.

“The problem has been sorted out. HAL representatives visited the naval installation in Vizag and demonstrated these changes that have been made about the foldability of the rotors,” a HAL official stated.

More than a dozen ALH Dhruv will be getting the foldable rotors, are waiting for them to be delivered.

The way the folding mechanism would work is that two of the rotors would be folded inward while one would remain outward in a straight position.