Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) on Friday signed a preliminary design phase contract with its Russian partner, United Aircraft Corporation, for development of a multi-role transport aircraft in the 15-20 tonne class.

“With this, HAL and UAC-TA will start the preliminary design work immediately at Moscow. HAL design team consisting of 30 designers will be positioned at UAC-TA,” HAL chairman R K Tyagi said in a statement. HAL would be carrying out the design and development of MTA at the Aircraft R&D Centre at Bangalore while its Transport Aircraft Division at Kanpur would manufacture the prototypes and subsequently produce the aircraft where dedicated facilities were being set up.

HAL’s other R&D centres and manufacturing divisions would develop systems and LRUs and manufacture of components, sub-assemblies and composite structure. The primary objective of the project was to achieve self-reliance in design, development and production of aircraft of this size and also to manage the programme with international collaboration and large number of global suppliers, the release added.