Made-In-India Passenger Aircraft Development On Track; NAL Director Reveals $2 Billion Price Tag

The National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL) director has revealed that the development of India’s first Regional Transport Aircraft (RTA) will take at least $2 billion in funding.

The NAL director Dr Abhay A Pashilkar was giving an interview, where he said that the 90-seater RTA will be executed by a special purpose vehicle at an estimated cost of $2 billion.

Dr Pashilkar said, “Typically $1 billion for full-scale engineering development, and then subsequent production will be done by industry.

“So typically, overall, it is something like $2 billion of investment for a clean sheet design, as they call it. So the derivative design where we take an existing aircraft would be probably less expensive in that sense but that is the kind of ballpark figure.”

Explaining the status of the project Dr Pashilkar said:

“As of now, we are in the project definition phase, it started last April and will conclude by September of this year. Once the project definition phase is over, we will be providing a detailed project report to the government.

“The detailed project report essentially contains what needs to be made, designed, how it needs to be done, and who are possible partners within India and abroad who can work on this project.”

“So, once that report is accepted by the government, that is when the full-scale engineering development will be launched. So, you can expect that to be taken up sometime after the detailed project report is launched,” he added.

In addition, Dr Pashilkar also said that the RTA will be developed not only with Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), but also with private sector companies.

“For the RTA, from the beginning, we are planning to have this development in a partnership mode keeping in view that it is a bigger aircraft. So, we currently have HAL and the DRDO as our partners in the conceptual design stage and we are actively looking for the industry both in India and abroad to come forward and become a partner in the supply chain, design development, and eventually in the production after the aircraft gets certified,” Dr Pashilkar said.

Explaining the development status of Saras MK II, Dr Pashilkar said, “SARAS MK II, which is our big project right now, is currently in detailed design, and very soon we should start getting the drawings after which we will get it fabricated in India.”

“We expect that once the drawings are released, progressively we will start our manufacturing process and sometime next year, we should have the components coming together and we are then able to essentially roll out the aircraft and once that is complete, then the flight testing part will start,” he added.

The Saras MK-2 Aircraft is the first Indian multi-purpose civilian aircraft in the light transport aircraft category being designed by the CSIR-NAL.

The 19 seat multi-role light transport aircraft, with its first flight planned around 2025, will be ideal for commuter connectivity under the government's region connectivity UDAN scheme for a variety of applications like air taxi, executive transport, light package carrier, border patrol, air ambulance, and other community services, according to NAL.

Dr Pashilkar also explained that a total of 15 aircraft will be produced by HAL and the timeline of the project is 2026.

Just last week, an Indian private defence company ‘Paras Defence’, signed a contract with NAL to provide an avionics suite worth Rs 64 crore for Saras MK II.

Additionally, the NAL is also working on another aircraft project — HANSA-NG — a two-seater trainer aircraft for civilians aspiring to become pilots in the commercial aviation market.

Dr Pashilkar said, “We have been working on a two-seater HANSA aircraft, the HANSA Next Generation or NG.

“This aircraft is targeted for ab initio training, which means that all the young pilots or those who want to become pilots, who want to get a commercial pilot license, this aircraft is meant for them.

“We have just completed all the testing, design, last year and we are just waiting for the final type certificate to be issued to us from the Indian DGCA (directorate general of civil aviation).”