Hindu(10-02-2011)

India's own 90-seat civil aircraft may fly by 2017: Upadhya

Bangalore: India can see its first indigenous civil aircraft taking to the skies in 2017 if the
Union Government accepts the soon-to-be submitted feasibility report by the High Power
Committee for the National Civil Aircraft
Development Programme (NCADP), and
the engineering process begin during 2012.
Talking to presspersons here on Wednesday,
National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL)
Director and Member-Secretary of the
committee A.R. Upadhya said that the
committee, headed by former ISRO
chairman G. Madhavan Nair, will submit a
detailed feasibility report to the Union
Government by March-April this year.

Pointing out that the design and

development of a 90-seat regional transport
aircraft will be a Rs. 4,000 crore project, Dr.
Upadhya said that the committee is
suggesting a joint venture development
under public-private partnership as many
private, both Indian and foreign, aerospace
companies have shown interest in
participating in the unique project to be executed by NAL. He said that the committee
had several rounds of discussions with the airline operators and others, and has gathered
the necessary wherewithal to develop the civil aircraft with a seating capacity of 70 to
100 passengers besides having provision to carry 1,000 kg of cargo as source of
additional revenue for aircraft operators.

The aircraft will have advanced avionics permitting operations from relatively short and
ill-equipped airfields, Dr. Upadhya said that though the country has 450 airfields but only
85 of them are operational.

“There is potential for short-distance low-cost carriers as operators are looking for cost-
effective and right-sized aircraft, while passengers want lower air fare. The proposed 90-
seat civil aircraft can make this happen,” he added.

It is proposed that the aircraft will be powered by an advanced state-of-the-art air

turbofan engine with low fuel consumption, exhaust gas emission and noise, Dr. Upadhya
said.

He added that the design has been targeted to achieve considerable savings in fuel
consumption, acquisition cost and overall operating economics.
He said that RITES of Indian Railways is doing market assessment and as per the initial
assessment, India required about 1,000 aircraft by 2025 in this segment.

He also said that the soon-to-be-submitted feasibility report would comprise aircraft
configuration studies, market assessment and system definition studies.

Dr. Upadhya said that it would take six years to complete the design, development and
begin production if everything works out as per the plan and the civil aircraft would be
ready for commercial operation by 2017.