India's 90-Seater Regional Transport Aircraft Development Struggles with Funding

[Akshat]

He will only give it to his master Adani

As long as he doesn’t give it to DRDO or HAL or NAL. At least we will get a plane that way.

 

[ABHIJIT APSINGIKAR]

Lot of peoople on this site seem to think designing a civil airliners is a easy task. We'll it's not. Civil aircraft rated for passenger travel have to be exceptionally reliable with components sych as actuators often rated for a million flight hours. They need to incorporate a highly redundant fail-safe architecture where most avionics have quadruple redundancies.

If HAL is going to put substandard components such as they did for Dhruv project, then expect aircraft to crash frequently.

 

[Srinivas Nirmal Kumar Avula]

This project is doomed from the start. The RTA 90 is nothing but re inventing the the wheel. It is the same in every way to the tried and tested ATR 72, nearly 2000 have been built over the years we can no way equal the cost of production per unit compared to the ATR. Thats all. Same story with the saras project. Its extremely difficult to get civil rating for an aircraft.

We are all just wasting our time in discussing Regional Transport OR Passenger aircraft. It practically not going to shape.
Because there are some internal forces within India working for our adversities to make sure not to happen until next 10 years. Instead Tata/Airbus will make it in India itself.

 

[ABHIJIT APSINGIKAR]

Someone should ask Ambani/TATA and Adani etc. to show some real entrepreneurship and risk some of their loot for national cause.

TATAs might be in the process of doing just that. A while back, there was a news about TATA trying to acquire IP rights for defunct RTA and Transport aircraft projects. If it succeeds TATA may indeed be building a RTA in India. Besides, the C-295 being assembled at TASL facility at Baroda, has the potential of being modified into a RTA aircraft. After all, Indonesia used a converted variant of CN-235 as a RTA aircraft to fly off remote airfields. If CN-235 can do it so can C-295, after all C-295 is about 20% larger than the baseline version of CN-235.

 

[Frank]

Someone should ask Ambani/TATA and Adani etc. to show some real entrepreneurship and risk some of their loot for national cause.

they are screw driver king

 

[Frank]

china is building passenger planes and here we are doing this...

our leaders are f00ls

 

[Ankit]

This aircraft won't fly in next 20 years under NAL.

 

[Sandeep]

He will only give it to his master Adani

Why do you think that Adani is a problem when he actually creates and builds things that the government can't do because it lacks the knowledge or funding?

 

[Sandeep]

India government has to fund and PMO should directly monitor the progress of these projects .
Foreign assistance also will be required from day one.
But given Indian fund crunch issues, governments has to spend on freebies to win elections, still a agricultural based economy , its hard to do these type of projects until and unless the government of the day made its mind and give a big push cutting across party line.

The B J P has always been against freebies but it's the opposition corrupt jihadi party who announces these freebies to win a election just to get into power. What the common man doesn't realise is that any tax incentive they receive they or there kids will end up paying double the amount just to pay the interest on the loan.

 

[Sandeep]

This project will definitely get funded by the government if no private company comes forward but they are still designing it and haven't finished it. Designing a brand new RTA takes a while and the level of safety and redundancy involved has to be to the highest level possible. It's much easier to develop a military version and get it certified before a civil variant gets passed and India will need to look carefully at the technology requirement and capacity to develop a transport plane.

The project will be capital intensive and it won't make any sales or profits until a large number are being bought in India and temporarily subsidised by the government as they will have to compete with established companies like Boeing and Airbus. Those two companies have a complete monopoly on the large number of international planes they export. Our own Indian companies like Tata and Akasa recently bought billions of dollars worth of planes and undercut any potential indigenous plane we could of developed for our own industry.

 

[Akshat]

Where there is will there is a way. HAL market cap is 2 lac crore. If no funds being allocated, ask govt to bring rights issue for 20K crore. Invest in R&D for proposed 90 seater and also go for 15,000 KM range ~300 passenger and 16-18,000KM ~400 passenger capacity planes. India has a booming civil market. Importing or screwdriving and putting a make in India sticker will hurt.

Money isn’t an issue. GoI is expected to take almost 15 lakh crores of debt this year. Assuming 16000 crores spread over 5 years, this project needs only 3200 crores annually, which is negligible for GoI. Problem is that GoI knows that HAL and NAL can’t be trusted to develop anything worthwhile. They can only operate when Indian armed forces are involved because MoD will force them to buy substandard products at double triple prices. No one in an actual competitive market will buy from DPSUs.

 

[Ajath]

As long as he doesn’t give it to DRDO or HAL or NAL. At least we will get a plane that way.

LAL SALAM , COMRADE slogans will not help your state Chetta. You guys have to shed out leftist attitude and move towards encouraging new industries to be set up in your state. Remember SINGUR , WB . If not your state survival will solely depend upon on Gulf money

 

[Ajath]

Civil aircraft rated for passenger travel have to be exceptionally reliable with components sych as actuators often rated for a million flight hours. They need to incorporate a highly redundant fail-safe architecture where most avionics have quadruple redundancies.

The critical part is aero engines.

 

[ABHIJIT APSINGIKAR]

The critical part is aero engines.

While aero engines are indeed critical, the most critical part would be navigation and control avionics. These avionics need to be fail-safe and need a highly redundant architecture.

 

[Amit]

NAL is developing SARAS a 14-18 seater civilian plan for last 30 years still it will take another 5 years for 1st flight. How could government trust on NAL & give another 16000 crore rupees to develop a 70 seater plan when NAL is unable to develop even a 14-18 seater plan.

 

[Anil Kumar]

First of all NAL have to deliver Saras mk1 and mk2 then government can consider for bigger aeroplane

 

[RG]

For regional jet a version of C-295 can be developed without reinventing the wheel, HAL could work with TATA systems on this. Also Mahindra should be give MTA contract for Ambraer KC-390. India should work with Ambraer to produce its line of product for regional market. A consorsium approach with Private and Public sector must come together for developing aerospace sector in the country. It is very capital intensive, with requirement of 10000s of part. HAL should focus on product developments that it is good at - specially Helicopter, fighter and trainer, they should build expertise in these areas and share it with private sector on a royalty basis.

 

[Baiju Bhaskaran]

Is this project really necessary or of any national importance, that GOI or any private party should take risk and fund it.

 

[abhinav srivastava]

Money isn’t an issue. GoI is expected to take almost 15 lakh crores of debt this year. Assuming 16000 crores spread over 5 years, this project needs only 3200 crores annually, which is negligible for GoI. Problem is that GoI knows that HAL and NAL can’t be trusted to develop anything worthwhile. They can only operate when Indian armed forces are involved because MoD will force them to buy substandard products at double triple prices. No one in an actual competitive market will buy from DPSUs.

The article sites funding hurdles as the reason. BTW, which other organisation in India is capable of pulling such projects thru?

 

[venkat]

ananthakrishan - deliver all the super delayed items first and then dream about this plane. tera aukat me nahi hai