FAA certification in near future for ALH-Dhruv: Ajit Singh

Efforts will be made to get HAL's Advance Light Helicopter (ALH-Dhruv) certified by US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the near future, Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh today said.
The FAA certification would enable HAL to export ALH-Dhruv, which they were unable to do because Indian certification was not accepted worldwide.
The indigenous chopper had already received the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) certification in 2003.
Inaugurating FAA-Asia Pacific bilateral partners' meeting hosted by the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) here, Singh also said that a mechanism needs to be evolved to benefit the bilateral countries involved in such agreements so that they could export or import aeronautical parts mutually.

"We also have a national civil aircraft development programme for 100-seat medium transport aircraft. Some of the country's leading aeronautics and space scientists are spearheading the project and I hope this takes shape," he said.
HAL Chairman R K Tyagi said the company had been focusing on military aviation but now planned to diversify into civil market.

"We have made a humble beginning with Dhruv civil variant as an offshoot of the military programme. We now propose to play a leading role in India's national civil aircraft development programme as we have dedicated facilities at our transport division in Kanpur," he added.

The three-day meet organised by Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) mainly focuses on aircraft certification, Tyagi said. It also seeks future direction for aircraft certification and international collaboration.
Tyagi also said that apart from the delegates from the US, the participating Asia-Pacific countries include Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, China, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia and hosts India.
Chris Carter from FAA and Civil Aviations Director General Arun Mishra also addressed the meet.