HAL Pushes for Homegrown Cargo Transporter to Stay Afloat in MTA Race

Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), India's state-owned aerospace giant, is pushing for the development of a fully indigenous cargo transporter.

This move comes as HAL feels the pressure of potential exclusion from the upcoming Medium Transport Aircraft (MTA) program. The development of an indigenous platform also plays into India's increasing focus on self-reliance in defense.

HAL's push for an indigenous solution comes on the heels of a private Indian company's successful execution of the C-295 transport aircraft order, marking a historical first for the country's defense sector.

Sources familiar with the MTA program confirm HAL's advocacy for a domestically developed cargo aircraft. This approach aligns with the government's goal of bolstering India's self-reliance in military technology and could offer long-term advantages in maintenance and upgrades.

The Indian Air Force (IAF) Chief's recent announcement regarding the replacement of its aging An-32 and IL-76 fleets with MTAs by 2030 and beyond presents a highly lucrative opportunity.

The potential for an order potentially exceeding 100 aircraft over the next two decades makes the MTA tender a highly desirable contract for defense contractors worldwide.

India's decision to withdraw from the collaborative MTA program with Russia, in which HAL held a key role, deprived the company of a pre-existing design for the IAF's needs.

Furthermore, several foreign aerospace companies interested in the IAF's tender have opted to partner with private Indian firms. This strategic move could potentially marginalize HAL if it doesn't put forward a compelling domestic solution.

The Indian government and the IAF are faced with a critical choice. Will they favor the potential long-term benefits of a fully indigenous aircraft spearheaded by HAL, or will the lure of established foreign platforms and partnerships with the private sector prove more appealing?

Ultimately, the coming months will prove pivotal in shaping the future of India's military transport aircraft capabilities and HAL's role within it.

 

[Superpower Bharat]

MTA is requirements of today.. it must .. But GOI should allow DRDO to start transport aircraft project.. We can't always relay on others for our strategic transport requirements. It may be with HAl or any private players..

 

[Paul]

What about tejas mk1, mk1a, mk2 or even AMCA? Just because it is designed in India you think it is 100% Indian parts? More than 50% of the value of parts is foreign origin. But I do agree without attempting there wont be a future for us, but that doesn't mean compromise Bharat's security by huge delays which is the halmark of DPSUs.

If you're so concerned about the delays, why is the fighter squadron experiencing delays in the MRFA? Doesn't Bharat's security matter anymore? Regarding the Tejas Mk 1A, the indigenous content will be around 65-70%. My suggestion is to adopt a balanced approach to address the aircraft shortfall and develop our own products.

 

[Akash Vashisth]

HAL should be able to use its own funds to at least design aircrafts and present them for better understanding of Govt and IAF. Going indegenious route is a much better thing than to opt for foreign aircraft.

This transport aircraft will help us in developing long range bombers. Maybe stealth bombers too in the future. We have to go for it.

 

[The_rED_dEVIL]

Ridiculous! What prevented them from designing an aircraft and offer it previously? The only reason they are making a pitch at this stage is to derail procurement of transporters as they can't have a pie of the project. So they now try to derail the entire procurement itself.

I have no issues in HAL developing a transporter, however if by chance they cant develop and start producing it within a decade the entire top brass of HAL needs to be incarcerated for treason and may be even hang their directors and chairman for once. Only then they will understand that taking India for a ride by over promising projects and under delivery by endlessly delayed projects will have significant consequences.

HAL has lots of due "homeworks"
Fighter jets - Tejas Mk 1A, Tejas Mk 2, AMCA, TEDBF
Trainers - HTT-40, HJT-36
Helicopters - NUH, IMRH...

They are not able to complete simple projects like trainer aircraft which they have already done in the past. Now, they are expecting to design and build a completely new transport aircraft about which they have no idea, nor any experience or infrastructure.

 

[Frank]

Bhai, every work in manufacturing requires screw-driving.
Now if you know of some technique to manufacturing by sticking with fevicol, then that is a different matter.

That said, mark my word: Till time government doesn't indicate its commitment towards breaking state monopoly by selling off stakes in DPSUs, we are better not expecting much from private sector players who are going to keeping up caution (albeit unjustified) when it comes to burning hands in military contracts.

Screw driving is a metaphor, not meant literally

Problem is Indian private companies are dhandomaxxers.

Total shameless and only care for profit. Nation can go down..

Tata Mahindra.. Making cars for dacades still they import engines from Germany...

It's not a symptom it's the disease

 

[Frank]

This Atmanirbharta is only solution.

But I don't trust Hal also... They are not capable of it.. They are completely incompetent plus they are liers...

Plus we don't have kaveri engine.

What do we do???

If TAta or Ambani take this challenge...

Except engine, rest avionics, body,... Can be developed locally by hal/tata/ambani So at least it will be 70 local..

Embrarer or airbus... Will be 0% local. 100% import +screw driving

 

[Frank]

What about tejas mk1, mk1a, mk2 or even AMCA? Just because it is designed in India you think it is 100% Indian parts? More than 50% of the value of parts is foreign origin. But I do agree without attempting there wont be a future for us, but that doesn't mean compromise Bharat's security by huge delays which is the halmark of DPSUs.

Why don't modi friend Adani Ambani... Take this as challenge???

They get all the sweet deals anyway

 

[Frank]

Not only that the private sector will upgrade on it also when they are more confident while HAL is still screw driving after 75 years of it's shameful existence. If GOI approves this project of HAL do not expect it it be deployed in 2 decades.

Atmanirbhar have to be started somewhere

 

[ABHIJIT APSINGIKAR]

If you're so concerned about the delays, why is the fighter squadron experiencing delays in the MRFA? Doesn't Bharat's security matter anymore? Regarding the Tejas Mk 1A, the indigenous content will be around 65-70%. My suggestion is to adopt a balanced approach to address the aircraft shortfall and develop our own products.

MRFA is partially stalled due to obduracy of IAF and partially due to the ineptitude and inherent inefficiency of bureaucracy. Between 2017-19, the government was prepared to order an additional tranche 36-50, Rafale by using the contract options. But, back then IAF, rejected the proposal and insisted upon acquiring bulk order of 114 Rafale. But as that would have cost the government upwards $20 billion, the Bureaucracy in Finance Ministry and the Finance department of MOD developed cold feet and since negotiations on pricing could not make significant headway it's more or less stalled.

 

[ABHIJIT APSINGIKAR]

Screw driving is a metaphor, not meant literally

Problem is Indian private companies are dhandomaxxers.

Total shameless and only care for profit. Nation can go down..

Tata Mahindra.. Making cars for dacades still they import engines from Germany...

It's not a symptom it's the disease

Yo IIT brain, Mahindra has its own engine line which it uses and TATA does not use German engines but rather uses Fiat engines. FIAT IS ITALIAN NOT GERMAN.

Mahindra M series engines are quite famous.

 

[ABHIJIT APSINGIKAR]

India and Russia had serious disagreements on work share and technology share.
In the end, they gave up.
So also Ka-226T after almost 9+ years, and Ak-203 is also gone for good I guess.

Work share?.seriously, when we don't have the capability to independently built a transporter, we are worried about work share? We ought to have just taken what was avaliable and built capacity.

Anyway, if HAL was serious about offering a transporter to IAF, they should have initiated proposal to develop one immedeatly after they pulled out of the project. Then the timelines would have been in sync with this procurement. But pitching the proposal now and expect government to delay procurement just for sake of giving chance to locally developed alternative just does not make sense as it would jeopardize IAF capability.

 

[beencensured]

Developing our product takes time.If they are start developing it now, then the prototype, testing and production will atleast take 15-20 years.

The only reason they are pitching the idea at this late stage is to derail the IAF's transport aircraft procurement. They seem to be bitter that theybwont be having any stake in the project.

They did the same during C-295 procurement, when they suddenly offered to modify HS-748 Avro at a very late stage, even when the IAF had turned down the idea previously.

Assembly is more shameless as it does not require talents of the country to use their gifted brains for the development of country, and so causing trillions of dollars in brain drain. Besides procurement may take five to ten years, making on own may take 10-12 years, but there are more benefits for making on own as we develop a talent pool. I would say HAL should build a heavy lift too as that would be even better but make private a partner.

 

[Frank]

Yo IIT brain, Mahindra has its own engine line which it uses and TATA does not use German engines but rather uses Fiat engines. FIAT IS ITALIAN NOT GERMAN.

Tata uses Italian engines... Wow totally not a problem at all..
Tata a major car company of 1.4 billion people still imports engine after 70 years in business.. I guess it's totally fine..

Mahindra imports majority of engines and transmission.
Some they make locally...

You literally 30 IQ M0nkey.
Teaching you just a waste of time..

Don't reply to me from now on unless you have very valid point.

 

[Paul]

MRFA is partially stalled due to obduracy of IAF and partially due to the ineptitude and inherent inefficiency of bureaucracy. Between 2017-19, the government was prepared to order an additional tranche 36-50, Rafale by using the contract options. But, back then IAF, rejected the proposal and insisted upon acquiring bulk order of 114 Rafale. But as that would have cost the government upwards $20 billion, the Bureaucracy in Finance Ministry and the Finance department of MOD developed cold feet and since negotiations on pricing could not make significant headway it's more or less stalled.

That's a political decision, and I agree with it.
However, my point is that I'm not against private players or HAL. In my opinion, India should proceed with the MRFA to address the immediate aircraft shortfall. We have also gained expertise in the fighter aircraft domain and have developed our own ecosystem for producing aircraft such as the Mk1, Mk2, and AMCA.

Similarly, I advocate for applying the same approach in the transport aircraft domain. While we are building Dornier Aircraft and collaborating with private players on the C295 Aircraft, and have acquired several C17 aircraft, we haven't initiated any indigenous projects thus far. Therefore, if there is a shortfall that needs immediate attention, we should purchase a few directly from the OEM and invest the rest in our own product—a balanced approach. Does that make sense?

 

[Kira]

Please leave HAL aside for this crucial project given that they can't even manage or complete on whats on order today.

 

[beencensured]

Own endeavor makes sense when ultimately it leads to a successful product.

HAL hasn't covered itself up in glory yet on that front.

C-295 might be a screwdriving project, but expect that project to complete in due time and mostly within the contracted budget.

Again, a country that can design forth plus generational planes with a higher composite ratio then f-22 f-35 and many planes on the market, why not try to make a light weight medium transport plane and heavy lift plane, but some would rather lose trillions of dollars economy by losing important talent due to brain drain for some bstrads hatred for all things Indian keeping India a regressive colony and slave.

 

[ABHIJIT APSINGIKAR]

Assembly is more shameless as it does not require talents of the country to use their gifted brains for the development of country, and so causing trillions of dollars in brain drain. Besides procurement may take five to ten years, making on own may take 10-12 years, but there are more benefits for making on own as we develop a talent pool. I would say HAL should build a heavy lift too as that would be even better but make private a partner.

As I said previously, I have no issues with developing it indigenously. Develop platforms by all means, but it can't be linked to the IAF procurement schedule. Its like saying Hey I love my daughter so much that i would go out of my way to learn all trades including cooking, flower decoration, music, study rituals and pooja required in her marriage. What do u think will happen? the daughter will be left unmarried for her life as she would be well past the marriage age.

Its the same. Our enemies are not going to wait for HAL to develop the capability to build the aircraft indigenously. So if it so means that we may need to assemble aircraft in near term then so be it, do it and address IAF/IA/IN capacity gaps immediately. While continue developing the appropriate domestic technologies to substitute imports in long run. Just don't expect IAF and Government to sit down and wait till u finish developing the platform.

 

[beencensured]

That's the problem. I have absolutely no issues with HAL initiating the project. But what I have issue is HAL pushing that project for.IAF present and near future requirement as it is absolutely unlikely to enter service atleast for next 2 decades.

It shameless the country does not spend two billion dollars for this project.

 

[ABHIJIT APSINGIKAR]

Tata uses Italian engines... Wow totally not a problem at all..
Tata a major car company of 1.4 billion people still imports engine after 70 years in business.. I guess it's totally fine..

Mahindra imports majority of engines and transmission.
Some they make locally...

You literally 30 IQ M0nkey.
Teaching you just a waste of time..

Don't reply to me from now on unless you have very valid point.

Mahindra has its own engine line googke it its called M Hawk engines. They are good and infact so good that Ford wanted to use it within their cars.

 

[beencensured]

Why don't modi friend Adani Ambani... Take this as challenge???

They get all the sweet deals anyway

Adani never risk his money only on guaranteed schemes as not really a capitalist but crony capitalism, but adani name might make the project successful as any private company as he would generate marketing hype unlike HAL who generates backlash.