Indian and Russian officials sign an agreement for setting up a JV to design a Multirole Transport Aircraft. The MoD press release is pasted below
AGREEMENT FOR SETTING UP OF JVC FOR DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF MULTIROLE TRANSPORT AIRCRAFT SIGNED
The effort to design and develop a Multirole Transport Aircraft (MTA) by India and Russia received a significant boost with the signing of shareholders agreement for setting up of a joint venture company, here last night.
A Joint Venture will now be formed between Hindustan Aeronautics Limited and the Russian Partners namely United Aircraft Corporation & Rosoboronexport to Co-develop and Co-produce Multirole Transport Aircraft (MTA).
MTA is a 15-20 tonne payload capacity Aircraft which would meet the requirement of the Indian Air Force and the Russian Air Force. The project has been approved by both the Government of India and the Government of Russian Federation.
The main features of MTA are: Maximum take-off weight 65 tonnes, Payload Capacity 15-20 tonnes, Cruise Speed 800 kmph, Range 2500-2700 km, Service ceiling 12 km. The Aircraft will have two engines, state of the art features such as fly-by-wire, full authority digital engine control, modern avionics and glass cockpit.
The total development cost is around US $ 600.70 million (approx Rs.2900 crores) to be equally shared by both the sides. It is planned to manufacture 205 aircraft with 50:50 work share between HAL and the Russian partners.
A Joint Venture Company (JVC) is being established with its headquarters at Bangalore, India for executing the MTA project in which HAL and Russian participants will have equal shareholding.
I hope this is a real JV with real 50:50 partnership. Never ever should we get into the ALH like scenario where even after footing the bill, we can't produce engine, transmission, vibration control system etc. If we are not able to get the engine tech then it would be a meaningless exercise.
ReplyDeleteRe Ajai
ReplyDeleteYou will need to verify about 50:50 workshare in what?
For instance, whether India will have any workshare in engines, gearbox, fuel injection system.
I don't think so! There goes 50/50 to 10/90
@anon at 18:19
ReplyDeleteIt will be 10/90 share in work and 90/10 in cost for us
Perhaps this is the best deal we can get short of developing MTA by ourselves. But some how this announcement does not inspire enough confidence knowing the the fact that almost every critical Indo-Russian JV continues to be mired in delays, cost over runs and constant haggling.
ReplyDelete-Nikhil
We should have joined the Embear KC390 program. Although our work share would be less, we would have received better technology with a mordern aircraft, developed in a definite time-scale.
ReplyDeleteAjai,
ReplyDeleteWelcome development. This would be a worthy, better successor of the AN-32, which has a very high chance of seeing the light of the day. Couple of questions-
1. What is the projected per unit cost of the MTA?
2. Is a 50:50 work-share feasible when HAL does not have any competencies in engines & FBW systems, to list a couple, other than license production?
3. Why is the development cost divided in a 50:50 ratio when IAF is interested to procure 45 aircraft out of the 205 planned production run? Shouldn't it be in a 1:3 ratio as per the production ratio?
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ReplyDelete