Military operations crippled as ALHs continue to remain grounded | India News

‘Dhruv’ superior mild helicopters

NEW DELHI: It’s a double whammy for the armed forces. Already grappling with the excessive crash price and low serviceability of their 350 out of date single-engine Cheetah and Chetak choppers, the extended grounding of the round 330 twin-engine ‘Dhruv’ superior mild helicopters (ALHs) has majorly hit navy operations and preparedness.
The armed forces financial institution closely on multi-role ALHs for ‘sustenance flights’ to ahead areas and posts alongside the unresolved borders with China and Pakistan as nicely as for remark and reconnaissance, search and rescue missions. “All have suffered major disruptions for over three months now. ALH pilots are also losing flying currency, and forced to make do with simulators,” a senior officer informed TOI.
The most affected is over 11.5-lakh robust Army, which has a fleet of over 180 ALHs, together with 60 weaponised variations known as ‘Rudra’, manufactured by defence PSU Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL).
IAF, in flip, has 75 ALHs, whereas Navy 24 and Coast Guard 19. The 5.5-tonne ALHs have been navy workhorses since their induction started in 2002, with the choppers within the Army alone clocking round 40,000 hours of flying in 2023-24.
The grounding of all of the ALHs, ever since a crash killed two Coast Guard pilots and an aircrew diver in Porbandar on Jan 5, has additionally compounded the long-standing drawback of big shortfalls in rotary-wing birds.
The armed forces, the truth is, have projected a requirement of over 1,000 new choppers of various sorts over the following 10-15 years, together with 484 mild utility helicopters (LUH) in 3.5-tonne class and 419 Indian multi-role helicopters in 10-15-tonne class. But there was big delays in these tasks being executed by HAL.
These new choppers are as well as to the 156 ‘Prachand’ mild fight helicopters which have to be delivered in 2028-2033 timeframe underneath the Rs 62,700 crore deal inked with HAL final month.
A small silver lining within the general grim scenario has been the Army’s hiring of some civil choppers for transportation of troops and provide of logistics to distant high-altitude posts alongside the northern and western borders.
“The use of civil choppers was started by Army’s Northern and Central Commands last Nov due to the huge shortage of helicopters. If that had not been done, it would have become extremely tough to supply troops deployed in forward locations after the grounding of ALHs,” an officer mentioned.
HALis but to conclusively set up the “root cause” behind the “swashplate fracture” within the ill-fated helicopter that made the Coast Guard pilots lose management of their flying machine over three months in the past. Safety checks have discovered indicators of comparable materials failures in another ALHs, officers mentioned.