HAL LUH / RSH Helicopter: News and Discussions

[Speedster1]

Well what would you do in their place? They're trying to protect their business. It's for the GoI to have a vision about the organization else do the right thing & make them truly autonomous instead of the sham autonomy HAL enjoys now.

Me? I'd lobby to keep the foreign mfgr out on the grounds of it being an unproven product. The Russians themselves only have a handful of these birds in service.

I'd ideally look for opportunities to co-develop a higher tier product with Kamov that didn't directly compete with my own and that too in a captive/monopoly market. Perhaps the Ka-28 successor design that Kamov is supposedly working on.

I see no point in this as HAL has already matured sufficiently as a hptr OEM. The only way forward if at all would be to collaborate with European / US hptr OEMs in technology like coaxial / contra rotating main rotors eliminating tail rotors entirely.

HAL has its hands full with LUH, IMRH etc. I doubt they'd have the bandwidth for R&D on tiltrotor/compound helos like those being developed by the US and China.

HAL is currently coasting along by adapting the core ALH design into light, medium variants. In terms of design innovation, there is little that LUH, IMRH bring to the table.

What for? HAL is already past that stage. They ought to be focusing on development of a marketing team to sell civilian versions of the ALH & the upcoming LUH apart from future variants & new models.

Not HAL, Tata. Rather than mere license assembly, they could've leveraged massive India's market size to negotiate IP/design rights transfer with Airbus/AW and built on it to create a local design base.

But yes, GoI would have to put it's weight behind them too.

 

[superuser726]

What for? HAL is already past that stage.

I guess he is talking about private sector buying those designs. Another example would be how Harbin, Changhe, and AVIC expedited their helicopter designs by doing a lot of license manufacturing, from the Z-5 (Mil Mi-4) in 1960s to collaboration in design of HC120 and Z-15.

They ought to be focusing on development of a marketing team to sell civilian versions of the ALH

Much more than that, they need to expand their maintenance network, show strong after-sales, prove a competitive operating cost and of course maintain high availability by providing a reliable product.

I have personally seen the attitude towards civilian customers that was, until quite recently, held by the HAL leadership. Specifically with how they handled MRO for the Alliance DO-228 (VT-KNP). This is a single airframe fleet, which also skewed up the MRO investment that Alliance could have reasonably made. The aircraft would need stay at Kanpur for extended periods for this work.

If anything more time consuming was to be done there was a standby aircraft (VT-KNQ) available, which is a good thing.

But in my opinion they are going in the right direction for their civilian products.

They've taken meaningful steps towards making their offering the best product for an operator willing to take some risks.

For example with PHL, HAL RWRDC is doing 5hrs of pilot training 6 days a week (most intensive helicopter training operations done India till date), HAL has bought out HATS OFF, they've done multiple product validation tests, and implemented multiple specific modifications to the Dhruv NG for ONGC offshore ops.

Not a single foreign OEM will be accommodating this much customization for an order of 10 helicopters.

Wouldn't be surprised if foreign OEM dump older civilian hptr designs in India to corner a share of the civilian market since HAL is fast asleep.

Every attempt they made at this civilian market has partially failed due to reasons which mostly boil down to cost, lack of product (they only had the Dhruv MK2/3 to sell), and this product being a mishmash of foreign suppliers (much more streamlined now).

I would not say they are fast asleep.

Indian civilian helicopter market is already mostly based on old civilian designs by foreign OEMs.

 

[Speedster1]

Unlike DRDO, HAL cannot be expected to hand over IP for a brand new product ie LUH to the private sector. They are not just an R&D organization. Tata has been doing a lot of contract mfg work already, from S-92 to AH-64E airframe assembly.

The value addition from assembling a Fennec/H145M/AW109 is going to be minimal for them atleast. Tata has bought out the Grob G180 executive jet in the past as a purely commercial deal.

So why not use that same leverage to get design rights for older gen helos of the Fennec/Dauphin series and make it their own?

In any case, the LUH prog has been mismanaged by MoD from the start. By splitting the requirement between L1 and L2, they'd be restarting a competition involving pretty much the same bidders from the past couple of editions (with the exception of Ka226).

Although I've seen a few reports that new gen helos like H160 are on offer as well so who knows?

 

[_Anonymous_]

Me? I'd lobby to keep the foreign mfgr out on the grounds of it being an unproven product. The Russians themselves only have a handful of these birds in service.

Ka-226 is already out. The discussion was on why did HAL seek a tie up with Kamov or were about to conclude one with the latter in spite of developing the LUH.

Apart from old ties between the two organizations a few years back alternatives to HAL didn't exist.

So why wouldn't HAL cash in? It's for the MoD to lay down the line. In any case as I've remarked about the Ka-226 earlier, it was Plan B. The recent RFI looking out for western hptrs in addition to the LUH isn't.

Once again it's for MoD to lay down the line which sadly they haven't. In any case our armed forces aren't quite interested in products brought out by the DPSUs exceptions notwithstanding.

I'd ideally look for opportunities to co-develop a higher tier product with Kamov that didn't directly compete with my own and that too in a captive/monopoly market. Perhaps the Ka-28 successor design that Kamov is supposedly working on.

HAL has its hands full with LUH, IMRH etc. I doubt they'd have the bandwidth for R&D on tiltrotor/compound helos like those being developed by the US and China.

Most of those designs too didn't come out of the stables of pvt contractors from their pockets. If I'm not mistaken DARPA may have commissioned them & funded their development.

Same formula applies here. However the IAF is in its own world.

HAL is currently coasting along by adapting the core ALH design into light, medium variants. In terms of design innovation, there is little that LUH, IMRH bring to the table.

In terms of innovation , no. There's nothing new. This is what I brought to the attention of @Milspec ex HAL Nashik a long time ago.

His idea from what I recall was that HAL ought to gain expertise in conventional design before moving on to experimentation. Makes eminent sense.

Not HAL, Tata. Rather than mere license assembly, they could've leveraged massive India's market size to negotiate IP/design rights transfer with Airbus/AW and built on it to create a local design base.

But yes, GoI would have to put it's weight behind them too.

I've written about this before ad nauseam. Tatas, Adani, Reliance etc are the last cos you ought to consider when it comes to investing money into R&D & product innovation .

They're the private sector counterparts of HAL except more efficient although I can't vouch for the last part.

 

[Speedster1]

Ka-226 is already out. The discussion was on why did HAL seek a tie up with Kamov or were about to conclude one with the latter in spite of developing the LUH.

Apart from old ties between the two organizations a few years back alternatives to HAL didn't exist.

So why wouldn't HAL cash in? It's for the MoD to lay down the line. In any case as I've remarked about the Ka-226 earlier, it was Plan B. The recent RFI looking out for western hptrs in addition to the LUH isn't.

Once again it's for MoD to lay down the line which sadly they haven't. In any case our armed forces aren't quite interested in products brought out by the DPSUs exceptions notwithstanding.

You asked me what I'd do in a situation like this. HAL had developed the LUH using internal funds. I'd try to recoup my investment first rather than license assemble a low margin Russian design with major third party components like the engine.

Now, HAL's bread and butter product, Dhruv/ALH is facing competition from the likes of the Airbus H160. This will make it hard for it the maintain market share that it was willing to give up earlier.

I agree with your point about the lack of political direction though.

 

[Gautam]

LUH manufacturing at HAL's Bangalore plant: