India’s first home-grown civil aircraft Hansa-3 (NG) given to private firm for commercial manufacturing

New Delhi: After three decades of development, India’s maiden indigenous civil aircraft Hansa 3 (NG) was on Friday transferred to an industry partner that promises to roll out the first commercial aircraft in the next 18-20 months.

Designed and developed by National Aerospace Laboratories, Bengaluru – one of the units of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research - the twin-seater pilot training plane will provide a cost-effective option to Flight Training Organisations that relies almost entirely on imported aircraft.

“It is the first indigenously designed and developed civil aircraft transferred to an industry partner for manufacturing. A similar imported aircraft will cost around Rs 6 crore while the home-grown one will cost around Rs 3 crore,” Abhay Pashilkar, director NAL told DH.

With the civil aviation sector booming in India, the requirement for such aircraft is likely to increase in the near future. Currently there are 37 FTOs operating from 54 bases, but the number of such pilot training organisations is set to rise.

“We plan to have 50 additional FTOs in the next five years. Each FTO needs at least three aircraft. Getting them from abroad will take time. While we have the technology, the challenge till now was to find a manufacturing partner. With Hansa-3 (NG), the future FTOs will have a make-in-India aircraft,” Union Civil Aviation Minister K Ram Mohan Naidu said.

According to the minister, India will need 30,000 pilots over the next 15–20 years, up from the current 6,000–7,000 pilots, as airlines collectively have over 1,700 aircraft on order.

India's commercial aircraft fleet stands at 840 currently. The pilot requirement is 15–20 for each narrow-body aircraft and 25–30 for long-range wide-body jets.

“We need to develop a large and world-class flying training ecosystem in India to meet the rapidly growing demand of the Indian aviation sector. The availability of CSIR’s indigenous Hansa-3 (NG) aircraft will strengthen India’s aviation industry,” Union Science and Technology Minister Jitendra Singh said here at the technology transfer event.

Pashilkar said compared to the early generation Hansa planes, the new Hansa-3 (Next Gen) aircraft have more fuel efficient engines, balloon canopy, glass cockpit and electric flaps that make them in the same league as aircraft manufactured by established players.

Hansa-3 (NG) has an empty weight of 550 kg and can carry a load of up to 200 kg. It has an endurance of seven hours, velocity of 620 nautical miles (single pilot) and flies at an altitude of 8,000 ft. The aircraft can also be used by flying clubs and can be tailored for reconnaissance applications.

Kishor Patel, the founder and managing director of Pioneer Clean Amps Pvt Ltd that got the technology, said the company was looking for sites in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh to set up the manufacturing plant for producing 36 aircraft in a year initially. Later the production capacity will be scaled up to manufacture 72 aircraft every year.

Pashilkar said NAL received Letters of Intent for more than 110 aircraft from FTOs across the country. Since CSIR technology transfers are non-exclusive in nature, the same can be offered to other companies too at a later date.