HAL Light Utility Helicopter
light utility helicopter
The HAL Light Utility Helicopter (LUH) is an Indian utility helicopter designed and developed by the Rotary Wing Research and Design Center (RWR&DC), one of the research and development (R&D) centres of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), for civilian as well as military applications. It is intended to replace license-built versions of Aérospatiale SA 315B Lama (designated Cheetah) and Aérospatiale Alouette III (designated Chetak) in service with the Indian Army (IA) and the Indian Air Force (IAF).
Development
Background
The first seven-seater French-origin Alouette III helicopters were introduced by the Indian Air Force (IAF) in 1962. During 1965, the Indian aerospace company Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) supplied the IAF with its first license-produced Alouette III, named HAL Chetak. During 1970, HAL received a contract to license-produce the five-seater SA-315B Lama helicopter, under the name HAL Cheetah, which were first delivered to the IAF in 1976. During the 1990s, the impending need for a successor to the aging Cheetah and Chetak fleets of the Indian Army (IA) and the IAF had been recognized. Multiple competitive tendering processes were made; one such effort sought 197 utility helicopters for the IA, 60 of which were to be directly purchased and the remaining 137 to be license-produced by HAL. However, this tender, in which the Eurocopter Fennec appeared to be the frontrunner against the rival Bell 407, was cancelled amid allegations of irregularities in the selection process; Eurocopter was later exonerated of wrongdoing.
New impartiality safeguards were enacted and the procurement process was restarted. In July 2008, the Government of India issued a request for proposals (RFP) to various companies, including AgustaWestland, Bell Helicopter, Eurocopter, Kamov and Sikorsky, for 197 light utility helicopters – 133 for IA and 64 for IAF – in a fly-away condition directly from the manufacturer for a quick delivery. Intended for military roles, the potential contract was valued as high as $750 million, of which 30 per cent was required to be invested within India under a government industrial offset policy; HAL was also specified to provide domestic maintenance for the fleet.
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This entry incorporates text from “HAL Light Utility Helicopter” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.