Aerospace Diary

AIN DEFENSE PERSPECTIVE  »  SEPTEMBER 14, 2012 by    NEELAM MATHEWS The Alouette III was license-produced by HAL in India as the Chetak. September 14, 2012, 12:55 PM Maintaining India’s fleet of more than 230 aging Cheetah and Chetak reconnaissance and surveillance helicopters is turning into a nightmare due to unavailability of spares, according to  K.C.  Nanda, general manager of Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd’s Barrackpore Division, who sounded the warning at a defense conference held in Kolkata in August.  HAL  built both the Cheetah and the Chetak under license from Eurocopter. The Cheetah is a version of the Eurocopter Aérospatiale  SA  315B Lama, single-engine helicopter that combines the lighter Alouette  II  airframe with Alouette  III  components and powerplant. The Chetak is a license-built Alouette  III . Production lines closed in France in the 1980s, and  HAL ...

Pix Source-PTI Neelam Mathews Sept 6, 2012 How long will it be before we see more horrific images related to the Cheetah and Chetak helicopters?  Already, around 20 accidents have occured in the past years related to these machines. The reason is familiar- lack of spares in the international market as production of the Lama has closed down! The French Aérospatiale SA 315B Lama , single-engined helicopter that combines the lighter Alouette II airframe with Alouette III components and powerplant was licence built by   HAL in India as the   Cheetah and the   Alouette III   was license built by HAL as the  Chetak. Aerospace Diary learns that with lack of spares in the market for the helicopters, HAL has started to cannabalise parts. Which means there are more AOGs - not helping the dire  situation. Many vendors that supplied parts to Eurocopter during the heydays are no longer around. We hear that the EC blade production line is ope...

Neelam Mathews May 31, 2012 India is rightly earning the acronymn of “the master of delays.” The bid – the second time round after the first one in 2008- for procuring 197 light utility helicopters for the Indian Army and Air Force required the day before yesterday (!) though having cleared technical evaluation, is stuck at the staff evaluation stage for months, the clearance of which, keeps getting delayed, Aerospace Diary learns. 64 are for the IAF, and 133 are for the Army. The next stage will be for it to go through the technical oversight committee to ensure nothing is missed out to be followed by other clearances till the commercial bids are even opened. All this time wasted has many in the business speculating whether the government really wants to make a decision between the two contenders- Eurocopter’s AS550 C3 Fennec and the Kamov Ka-226- at all. With HAL developing the Light Utility Helicopter based on the single engined-ALH, and around 187 more light utility helico...