India closes in on chopper export to the Philippines

Illustrating the benefits of developing indigenous weapons platforms, Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL) is poised to sell the Philippines at least seven Dhruv Advanced Light Helicopters (ALH) and eight Dornier 228 aircraft, possibly through a Government of India line of credit.

Manila is evaluating a maritime variant of the Dhruv ALH, which HAL has developed in Bengaluru on request from the Indian Navy and Coast Guard. It involved integrating the Dhruv Mark (Mk) III with maritime policing capabilities, converting the plain vanilla ALH into a variant called the Dhruv Maritime Role (MR). 

As the original equipment manufacturer of Dhruv, HAL developed the