HAL’s Cheetal Meets Indian Army’s Urgent Needs

[Abingdonboy]

Height of backwardness.

Does anybody else find this part disturbing?

And they are talking about meeting the army's "urgent needs".

In the past 7 years they have produced 9 cheetals (very small and light helo) - WTF? And that too with an airframe that they have been manufacturing for donkeys years.

Regardless - If the army placed an order in 2006 for a grand total of ten helos, and they haven't finished the order as of 2013, there is something rotten to the core there. How do you expect the forces to plan and place orders, if this is the rate at which they get even such a small aircraft? The LUH was not even on the horizon when the order was placed, and would not have been on the force planners' minds. They placed an order foreseeing an operational requirement, of ten tiny helos. If somebody had informed them that they would get them in 7 years time (actually not yet), I think they would have gone for a foreign purchase and gotten equivalents in a month or two. These are not some huge strategic game changing space ships we are talking about.

I suppose we can expect to get our last HAL built Rafale on the same day that the first intergalactic battleship takes to space.

You cannot really attack HAL on this regard. When the IA is ordering such small quantities at a time with series time delays between each separate order it makes no economic sense for HAL to keep the CHETAH/CHEETAL production line open indefinitely. It now seems that as HAL have shifted their priorities to the ALH and upcoming LUH and LCH orders that the CHEETALS will be fitted in when and where possible.


Anything else would be incredibly wasteful, if HAL decided to crank-up CHEETAL production then other orders like the ALH,LCH and LUH would be hit which is unacceptable.


Given these CHEETALS are one a stop-gap measure until the HAL LUHs get delivered it would be crazy for the CHEETAL production to adversely affect the LUH devlopment and production as a result.

 

[Skull and Bones]

Which is again criminally slow, considering that:

1) HAL has been producing the airframe for decades, and is nothing new to them (except the new engine and other slight upgrades from the basic cheetah).

Your frustration is unjustified considering, the production lines were closed after delivering ordered Cheetals (Ungraded Cheetah with 1300HP engine). Doesn't matter how much experience they had, re-starting a production line isn't a joke.

The same reason South African Denel dropped their Rooivalk combat helicopter program, when it was conceived in the 90s, there wasn't much demand and the production lines were closed after manufacturing 12 something choppers. And when demand arise, it was estimated it'd cost them around $1.2 billion to restart the production line.

2) The forces need these as of yesterday. There is a huge urgency for light helos, and the 197 LUH foreign purchase is not going to happen, and the HAL LUH will take time to arrive. Yes, it is a stop-gap solution, and that is PRECISELY why it needs to be fast. Stop gap solutions are by definition meant to be a very quick measure to tide over a period of slowness.

Same HAL is making Dhruv at a rate of 16-18 helicopters per year. I call it a negligence of the armed forces, they should have pursued LUH contract more actively. Just buy 200 odd Eurocopter Fennec and get done with it.

Someone tell me why HAL can't manufacture these any faster, in light of point 1 above. This is incompetence, plain and simple.

Same HAL which can produce Dhruvs at a rate of as high as 25 per year, and can be extended to 36 if international demand arises.

 

[President]

rmy reverted back to Indianization due this issue