HAL Nashik unit cranks up to 24 Tejas light combat aircraft a year

Discover how HAL races to deliver 180 Mk 1As in under a decade, ramping up production to meet rising demand

Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL), the lead integrator of the indigenous Tejas light combat aircraft (LCA), is grappling with an unusual predicament: a problem of plenty.

Plenty of orders, that is.

After taking more than two decades to build and induct the first 40 Tejas Mark 1 fighters, HAL must now produce and induct the next 180 Tejas Mark 1As — the new, more capable variant of the Tejas Mark 1 — in less than a decade.

This will require HAL to accelerate its current production rates, dramatically scaling up the rate at which it will churn out the new Tejas Mark 1A fighter.

After the Tejas Mark 1’s inaugural flight in January 2001, it took the Indian Air Force (IAF) another 14 years to commission the first Tejas squadron — Flying Daggers No. 45 Squadron. This year, it will be another 10 years before the second Tejas squadron — Flying Bullets No. 18 Squadron — is expected to be operationalised.

A fighter squadron normally fields 20-21 single-seat aircraft. These include 16 single-seaters and two twin-seat trainer aircraft. Three more fighters are held in reserve to make up for combat losses.

HAL moved its production into top gear in February 2021, when the Ministry of Defence (MoD) contracted with it for 83 Tejas Mark 1A fighters (four squadrons). The pressure on HAL increased further last month when MoD began processing a contract for 97 more.

HAL chief C B Ananthakrishnan has identified his key challenge as creating enough production capacity to satisfy the IAF’s demand for aircraft. If HAL fails at that, the IAF is likely to approach global original equipment manufacturers to meet India’s requirements.

ALSO READ: PART 1: Revamped Tejas Mk 1A ready for takeoff: First batch of 16 to serve IAF

HAL began its Tejas production with limited capacity: an assembly line in Bengaluru that could produce eight fighters a year. This could be doubled to 16 aircraft annually.

“But that restricted us to slower deliveries and a longer delivery period. So we proactively put up a third production line in Nashik, ramping up our capacity to 24 aircraft per year,” says Ananthakrishnan.

“Consequently, HAL is building eight fighters a year at its LCA division in Bengaluru; another eight in the so-called aircraft division in Bengaluru, and another eight in the MiG Complex in Nashik. Other HAL divisions, such as the Composites, feed into these three main production lines,” says Ananthakrishnan.

This will provide HAL the capacity to build the Tejas LCA at two production rates: 16 aircraft per year in line with the ‘Contracted Schedule’ and 24 in keeping with the ‘Enhanced Delivery Schedule’.

“If, for any reason, we are unable to build these numbers in HAL, we have a backup plan involving the private industry. Private industry will also feed into these three main lines by building major assemblies, such as front fuselage, centre fuselage, rear fuselage, wings, etc.,” says Ananthakrishnan.

The facilities that would be set up to build these 220 fighters would be 16 per year in the Bengaluru complex and eight per year in the MiG Complex in Nashik where, for two decades, HAL assembled the Sukhoi Su-30MKI. HAL can increase Nashik’s capacity from eight to 12, with certain incremental infrastructure. But there is no plan to do this at present.

“Earlier, we were producing 12 Sukhoi Su-30MKIs on average each year, with each aircraft requiring 600,000-800,000 manpower hours in Nashik, in addition to outsourcing. LCA’s full capacity will be unleashed, as it requires just 175,000 manpower hours,” says the HAL chief.

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