HAL for design review of proposed LUH rotor
August 19, 2014: Learning from past mistakes that have spelt trouble for the ALH programme, HAL has decided to go in for a critical design review of the rotor system it has developed for the Light Utility Helicopter prototype. While HAL is moving ahead with the rotor development, the design team has felt it felt necessary to review the rotor system design (critical design review) by an independent agency in order to preclude issues which could come up during the rig tests and flight tests. According to HAL, the rotor design is based on the earlier experience of developing a 5.5 ton class helicopter. The main rotor of the helicopter is a four bladed hinge less type rotor with FEL rotor head with elastomeric bearings (Conical and Radial). The tail rotor is a four bladed bearing less rotor designed to meet all the anti- torque, directional control and manoeuvring requirements. For the review, HAL expects that there will not be major changes in the type of rotor system adopted: hingeless concept for the main rotor, bearingless concept for the tail rotor, number of blades, etc. The design review of the rotor system design needs to primarily cover the safety of design, flying quality characteristics, vibration issues, manufacturing, maintenance, time before overhaul and lifing.
HAL for design review of proposed LUH rotor
- SP's MAI
DRDO scouts long-range sensors for aerostats
August 19, 2014: The DRDO is scouting a long range electro-optic (LREO) payload for day & night reconnaissance, surveillance and targeting at long ranges to be mounted on an indigenous aerostat platform, Akashdeep and its variants. The payload employed needs to include daylight CCD/CMOS camera with continuous zoom, narrow field of view spotter, MWIR/LWIR thermal imager, eye safe laser range finder and stabilized turret that performs sight line steering with precised stabilization. According to the DRDO, the LREO should enable ground based operators to steer the payload line of sight in azimuth and elevation axes to detect and recognize targets at required ranges during day and night, and should include a video tracker, which will enable automatic target tracking during day and night target acquisition. The DRDO is building a family of aerostats for border surveillance. Akashdeep is a medium size aerostat system indigenously designed and developed by the Aerial Delivery Research and Development Establishment (ADRDE) in Agra. It was tested for the first time from the IIT Kanpur airstrip in October 2012. The overall system involves high performance PU Coated Nylon fabrics, aerostat balloon, Electro-Optical Tether, Electro-Hydraulic Control System, Smart-Active Pressure Control System, Helium Gas Management System etc.