UNI

Bangalore, May 24: Indian Defence Aviation major Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) will submit next month its proposal to Chile's Request for Proposal (RFP) for the indigenously developed Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH) 'Dhruv'.

HAL has received the RFP from the Chilean Air Force for the 5.5 tonne, twin engined new generation helicopter which has already been supplied to the Indian Defence forces.

HAL Director (Corporate Planning and Marketing) M Fakruddin told UNI on Wednesday that HAL would be responding to the RFP in June. The requirement had been put at around four to six choppers.

HAL would also be shortly signing a contract with Boliva for two Dhruvs, Fakruddin said.

The requirement of helicopters by the Chilean Air Force was much more, but they would be going in for heavier class of choppers for which BELL and Eurocopter were in the race, he added.

HAL had been for some years now demonstrating ALH in the terrains of Chile which was similar to India.

The RFP comes in the wake of HAL receiving covalidation type certificate from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGAC) of Chile recently. Compliance of ALH with the requirements specified by the aviation regulation applicable in Chile was confirmed after detailed review of technical documents and carrying out flight tests on Dhruv.

Dhruv has been designed for multi mission, multi role operations over varying terrains. The weather terrain and operating environments of Chile were very similar to that of the Indian subcontinent--be it dry volcanic sand plateau, high mountains, long sea cost or snowy land with arctic mountainous conditions.

Dhruv, designed to operate on hot and high and hot and cold conditions had excelled in similar operations in India and met all the requirements of Chilean Air Force.

HAL would be in a position to supply Dhruvs to other countries after fulfilling meeting the requirements of the Indian defence forces. Normally such orders were met within a time framework of 12 to 18 months, Fakruddin said.

HAL had conducted live demonstration of Dhruv equipped with advanced cockpit, electronic warfare suite and surveillance pod in Chile. In all four Dhruv choppers were involved in a wide range of applications for evaluation with the demonstration clocking a total 107 hours. It flew to highest altitudes, hot and desert conditions, carried out ship deck landing at Valparaiso, search and rescue at 12,500 ft above mean sea level at a temperature of two degrees Celsius of Iquique as well as long distance ferry flights between Santiago to Africa and back, covering 3600 km.

As a collaborative approach the local Chilean industry, ENAER was also participating in HAL's Dhruv manufacturing programme by adding local content to the chopper. HAL had offered to transfer the maintenance capabilities to ENAER for providing in country maintenance support for Dhruv.