Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd., the aerospace major in the country, has reached another major milestone when it signed the tripartite General Contract with United Aircraft Corporation -Transport Aircraft (UAC-TA), the Russian partner & their JV-Multirole Transport Aircraft Ltd. (MTAL) for the Multirole Transport Aircraft (MTA) project on Monday, 28th May, 2012.

HAL has been manufacturing transport aircraft at TAD, Kanpur namely Avros HS-748 and Dornier Do-228.

A total of 89 Avros has been manufactured with first delivery in April 1964 and 89th aircraft delivery in September 1984. HAL has also carried out a number of upgrades and customization of these aircraft. HAL is maintaining the fleet.

HAL has manufactured 116 Dorniers till date with first delivery in 1984 and the 116th in March 2012 and the same are being maintained by Kanpur division. Two Do-228 maritime aircraft have been exported to Mauritius. HAL has taken up manufacturing of structural assemblies of Do-228 for Ruag Aerospace, Germany and has supplied eight sets so far. Export of one Do-228 to Seychelles is under progress.

HAL will carry out design & development of its workshare of Multirole Transport Aircraft at Aircraft R&D (ARDC) Centre at Bangalore while its Transport Aircraft Division (TAD) at Kanpur will manufacture the prototypes, and subsequently the serial production will be at Kanpur where dedicated facilities are being set up.

HAL's other R&D Centres and manufacturing divisions will share development of systems and LRUs and manufacture of components, sub-assemblies and composite structure. HAL will showcase its expertise in design of aircraft as well as systems, manufacturing & flight testing while jointly working with the Russian team in Moscow as well as in India.

Indian and Russian governments had earlier signed an Inter-Governmental Agreement for joint design, development & production of MTA on 50:50 sharing basis and had decided to form a JV between HAL, UAC-TA & Rosoboronexport to execute the project.

The primary objective is to achieve self-reliance in design &development and production of aircrafts of this size and also to manage the programme with international collaboration and large number of global suppliers.

The aircraft will be designed for the roles of cargo/troop transportation; para-drop /air drop of supplies including Low Altitude Parachute Extraction System (LAPES) and is to be co-developed by HAL and UAC & Rosoboronexport of Russia through a Joint Venture Company (JVC).

HAL & UAC-TA has proposed to design, develop and produce Multirole Transport Aircraft in the 15-20 tone class, jointly by Indian and Russian agencies to meet the requirement of 100 aircraft for the Russian Air Force, 45 aircraft to the IAF and 60 for the third countries. Total requirement for the present is 205.

The MTA project preliminary design will start immediately on signing the follow up contract on preliminary design on which tripartite discussions have been concluded.