India, Russia Begin MTA Development

India and Russia have officially begun work on the project to develop a transport aircraft, about 30 engineers from Hindustan Aeronautics Limited along with Russian counterparts from the United Aircraft Corporation began collaborating on the $600-million project. "Our team in Moscow informed us they are now functional at the special design facility that Russia has set up," said NC Agarwal, the Chief Executive Officer of the joint venture company, called Multirole Transport Aircraft Limited, which will design the aircraft capable of carrying 15-20 tonnes of payload. The design and testing of the aircraft is expected to be complete in 60 months during which time five prototypes will be built. A total of 205 aircraft will be manufactured with the Russian Air Force (RAF) ordering 100 and 45 for the Indian Air Force. The last 60 will be built for export abroad. With the MTA, the IAF will be able to phase out the aging AN-32 aircraft. In 2007, thw two countries an Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA) in November 2007; after which HAL, UAC and MTA Ltd signed a General Contract, an umbrella document that defines the broad framework of the contract. And in 2012, came a $35-million contract for the Preliminary Design Phase (PDP), which provided for a joint HAL-UAC team to work for the next 10 months in Moscow. The team will formalize the MTA's configuration, basic performance, its various systems, the engines, and identify alternatives as well. This will be done to ensure that the RAF's and IAF's requirements are fully met. "India will carry out some 40 per cent of the design work, while Russia will do the remaining 60 per cent" says Agarwal. "But it will be a collaborative enterprise, since everything has to come together smoothly, without loss of time". Production is expected to begin by end 2017 and HAL and UAC will respectively manufacture a specified set of parts and modules for all 205 MTAs.