The National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL) here is more than doubling the size of the design bureau, tasked with development of an indigenous civil aircraft for regional connectivity, as the country’s ambitious programme gathers momentum.
The design bureau currently has a head-count of 80 engineers — a mix of domain experts drawn from Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL), Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and NAL, among others, as well as young techies. This team has already undertaken preliminary design of the aircraft and prepared the project report.
G Madhavan Nair, who chairs the High Powered Committee (HPC) formed by NAL (a council of scientific and industrial research lab) to oversee the project, said a selection process is on to hire 100 more engineers, both freshers and experienced hands with domain knowledge. “Already, response is good,” Nair, a former chairman of ISRO, said. He said the planning commission recently reviewed the project and “they have given a positive report on that” and added that a formal cabinet approval to the Rs 7,555 crore programme is expected in a couple of months.
The feasibility study conducted by HPC concluded that there is a market potential for 70-to-100 seat regional transport aircraft in India. The baseline design is a 90-seat twin turbofan engine powered aircraft.
