HAL Indian Multirole Helicopter (IMRH) : Updates & Discussions

We have all these equivalents and more, but they are all being developed according to DRDO time.
Thats the problem. We have these systems and I would say they are superior to turkish systems in some cases like the SANT and nirbhay alcm in the works. But the Turks already have this in use while our systems in development and endless trials. Then we have the problem of standardisation and variant development where the Turks already have multiple variants. But a lot of this is due to economics. India at the end of the day is a poorer country with different mission set requirements. But a lot of things can be learned from the Turks..
They have made lot of cost-effective and micro-sized solution...
 
Thats the problem. We have these systems and I would say they are superior to turkish systems in some cases like the SANT and nirbhay alcm in the works. But the Turks already have this in use while our systems in development and endless trials. Then we have the problem of standardisation and variant development where the Turks already have multiple variants. But a lot of this is due to economics. India at the end of the day is a poorer country with different mission set requirements. But a lot of things can be learned from the Turks..
They have made lot of cost-effective and micro-sized solution...

Apart from better funding, they also started before us, and they used more foreign help than we did. Plus we started off with far more important programs. For example, our seeker tech was developed out of our BMD program. So our priorities were different.

DRDO also asked for time until 2022 to indigenise all missile related technologies, so they are working on a plan and seem to be sticking by it.
 
But a lot of this is due to economics. India at the end of the day is a poorer country with different mission set requirements. But a lot of things can be learned from the Turks..
Actually thats wrong. Indian government's budgeted expenditure is 940 billions. Turkey is merely 240 billion. Indian government has more money at its disposal. DRDO's public fund is 1.6 billion dollars per year. TÜBİTAK's public funds are 350 M dollars. HAL's annual revenue 3.0 billion dollars. TAI's annual revenue is 2.26 (and they do satellites etc too, which is ISRO's domain in our country). Rocketsan's annual revenue is 300 million, BDL's revenue is 430 million yearly. Turkey's over all revenue of their entire defence industry is 11 billion dollars. Total revenue of OFB + HAL + BEL is 11 billion dollars. Anything else is extra (about 3-4 billion dollars).

Our defence companies are bigger than theirs. Our budget is much bigger. Their average citizen is richer than us but our govrnment has much bigger pool of fund to work with.
 
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Actually thats wrong. Indian government's budgeted expenditure is 940 billions. Turkey is merely 240 billion. Indian government has more money at its disposal. DRDO's public fund is 1.6 billion dollars per year. TÜBİTAK's public funds are 350 M dollars. HAL's annual revenue 3.0 billion dollars. TAI's annual revenue is 2.26 (and they do satellites etc too, which is ISRO's domain in our country). Rocketsan's annual revenue is 300 million, BDL's revenue is 430 million yearly. Turkey's over all revenue of their entire defence industry is 11 billion dollars. Total revenue of OFB + HAL + BEL is 11 billion dollars. Anything else is extra (about 3-4 billion dollars).

Our defence companies are bigger than theirs. Our budget is much bigger. Their average citizen is richer than us but our govrnment has much bigger pool of fund to work with.
No it's not possible their budget is way higher than actually shown just look at their product portfolio and ongoing programs no way they can sustain them with above figures. They even high hire top class foreign consultant and manpower again that requires huge money. They are going to spend 1b$ on tfx alone this yr. Something is seriously wrong. @randomradio.
Apart from better funding, they also started before us, and they used more foreign help than we did. Plus we started off with far more important programs. For example, our seeker tech was developed out of our BMD program. So our priorities were different.

DRDO also asked for time until 2022 to indigenise all missile related technologies, so they are working on a plan and seem to be sticking by it.
Include better management and competition too.
 
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No it's not possible their budget is way higher than actually shown just look at their product portfolio and ongoing programs no way they can sustain them with above figures. They even high hire top class foreign consultant and manpower again that requires huge money. They are going to spend 1b$ on tfx alone this yr. Something is seriously wrong. @randomradio.
You can indeed have a massive hidden defence budget BUT provided your total government budget is massive too. Only USA and China have that luxary. Turkey does not. Its economy is one about one fourth of ours (they have been contracting for many years now). Their government expenses are less than half of ours. They simply cannt send as much in defence as we do.

They have two distinct advantages : One is they have access to better technology because of being part of NATO. Another is they are more mature in industrial terms because many of their companies have been in existance for much longer than ours.

As far as TFX goes, their allocated prilinmary design budget is 1.18 development billion dollar (allocated in 2018 or so) for total period of 4 years.
 
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You can indeed have a massive hidden defence budget BUT provided your total government budget is massive too. Only USA and China have that luxary. Turkey does not. Its economy is one about one fourth of ours (they have been contracting for many years now). Their government expenses are less than half of ours. They simply cannt send as much in defence as we do.

They have two distinct advantages : One is they have access to better technology because of being part of NATO. Another is they are more mature in industrial terms because many of their companies have been in existance for much longer than ours.
Then how come Israel and Singapore makes such good products??
Indian HDI is not high enough and our ecosystem is not promoted. All of the turkish products have been exclusively developed by private companies like aselsan,beykar and otokar.
When are we giving Tata,l&t and Ashok Leyland orders for armoured vehicles or anything for that matter..
 
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HAL as a company exists under 90% ownership of the state to help armed forces nothing else. They are not incentivized for high-risk/high-reward games like a private corporation.

We should be appreciating HAL for their efforts on engine and 10+ ton helicopter design.
This is precisely why that question was posed to Milspec & not to you. If HAL thinks they're obliging the nation or the armed forces thru such innovations like the OFB both they & people who justify their actions like you need to wake up .

Why? Coz HAL is a PLC today & will be an autonomous if not totally independent of the government sooner rather than later or at least that's the aim. They owe it to themselves first & foremost as I shall skip management & investment jargon like unlocking shareholder value & lessons on innovation etc .

The ALH program, as Milspec rightly pointed out was a much less ambitious project unlike the ADA & started out small following the principles of evolutionary development as opposed to revolutionary development.

For more insight into understanding the difference between these 2 concepts pls check on why the F-35 is such a mess & this post which hits the nail bang on the head -


To come back to the issue at hand the fact that the design team was in house also helped HAL as they were in control of the entire project since the start unlike the ADA LCA project where ADA, HAL, MoD & IAF were on the 4 cardinal points of the compass.

We know enough today on how that project proceeded. A strong argument for why OEMs ought to have their own in house design & R&D teams as opposed to the Soviet model we've selected & are now stuck with.

Finally, HAL discovered the proverbial goose that laid golden eggs in hptrs. It was a niche virgin territory & before the MoD could get ideas like perhaps involving ADA or some other DRDO lab, HAL launched the ALH with due sanctions & over the years have developed a mature product line apart from gaining experience & maturing as a proper true blue OEM themselves as opposed to assemblers & system integrators which is what they were earlier with little of these experiences coming in handy when proceeding with the ALH project.

The next step ought to have been somewhere between evolutionary & revolutionary. If as @Milspec points out HAL lacked design expertise, I'm sure consultancy from the major hptr OEMs could've been undertaken. Instead HAL decided to play safe.

I'm just hoping they show more appetite for risk taking while coming up with future iterations coz the hptrs the West or even Russia is coming up with in the same & other classes of heptrs in terms of sheer design innovation is on a different plane altogether. I'm not too familiar with Chinese developments in this field but wouldn't be surprised if they've kept up pace with the West.
 
Then how come Israel and Singapore makes such good products??
You can make specific great products. Does/Did Israel operate a nuclear submarine? No it does not. India does. That sub costs a lot for infra and development. Is israel building its own fifth gen fighter? No. India is trying to build. Is israel building carriers? No but India is. See the pattern? We are trying to do a lot but no necessarily the top of the line stuff. Also Israel "outsources" a lot of heavy lifting to USA. US built its fighter (F-16 and then F-35), Israel integrated a lot of its own stuff in it. Similarly, Turkey was a partner in JSF. Israel never attempted (AFAIK) a jet engine development, India did.

They have specific and top of the line capabilities. We are trying to hit across the board everywhere but in a more mediocre sense. Our policy is driven by export denial (aka Atmanirbhar). Their policy is built around excellence and networking in US defence ecosystem.
 
Indian HDI is not high enough and our ecosystem is not promoted. All of the turkish products have been exclusively developed by private companies like aselsan,beykar and otokar.
When are we giving Tata,l&t and Ashok Leyland orders for armoured vehicles or anything for that matter..
Things like HDI, GDP per capita etc all these do not matter in the game of high tech. You can have a small elite class embedded in a massive poor and hungry general population that does wonders. India never focused on a very narrow area of expertise but its effort has been across the board which is why funds have never been allocated enough on a single focused effort. If most of our research funds, for example, were focused on jet engine or AESA radar development only, we would acheived it much earlier. We tried to not only build an engine but an entire plane with a indigenous radar with it. Thats what fails. Thats a step too big. It is not having a scope of failures and retries.
 
Right now HAL sees Munitions as a user-defined pick and chose system.
So for a LCA: HAL will qualify a Derby, Python, R73, (Maybe R77-AE) but not sell it as a package.
It will let IAF or IN pick what it wants. So IAF depending on political compulsions, kickbacks, strategic relations, might pick from a basket of Euro/Israeli/Russian/Indian munitions per it's comfort.

This sphere of BEL/BDL too needs to be challenged by the private sector. Why is it that it's always PSU's that should produce DRDO designs. I think time has come to give some frontline munition projects to private established players with the right security controls. Imagine L&T building SFDR systems, not just fuselage or some part of it but the complete product, there is room to grow here as long as the central government would have the foresight for a strategic roadmap.
 
Right now HAL sees Munitions as a user-defined pick and chose system.
So for a LCA: HAL will qualify a Derby, Python, R73, (Maybe R77-AE) but not sell it as a package.
It will let IAF or IN pick what it wants. So IAF depending on political compulsions, kickbacks, strategic relations, might pick from a basket of Euro/Israeli/Russian/Indian munitions per it's comfort.

This sphere of BEL/BDL too needs to be challenged by the private sector. Why is it that it's always PSU's that should produce DRDO designs. I think time has come to give some frontline munition projects to private established players with the right security controls. Imagine L&T building SFDR systems, not just fuselage or some part of it but the complete product, there is room to grow here as long as the central government would have the foresight for a strategic roadmap.
Indeed. More choices better outcomes.
 
Right now HAL sees Munitions as a user-defined pick and chose system.
So for a LCA: HAL will qualify a Derby, Python, R73, (Maybe R77-AE) but not sell it as a package.
It will let IAF or IN pick what it wants. So IAF depending on political compulsions, kickbacks, strategic relations, might pick from a basket of Euro/Israeli/Russian/Indian munitions per it's comfort.

The LCA as a program is so old that the R-73 became an obvious choice after it became available two decades ago, it superceded the R-60.

The IAF had chosen the Python V for the LCA in order to supercede the R-73. But they also asked for the integration of the ASRAAM since it is expected to share missions with the Jaguar. It made sense to share inventory for the sake of logistics. Also the fact that the ASRAAM and Python V are complementary in terms of design, one has range, the other has agility.
 
As far as TFX goes, their allocated prilinmary design budget is 1.18 development billion dollar (allocated in 2018 or so) for total period of 4 years.
Now guess the total budget for AMCA preliminary design.
 
Now guess the total budget for AMCA preliminary design.
Well R&D in India is cheap and moreover hiring foreign consultancy is expensive all the design work of TFX is being carried out by BAE turkey doesn't even have any experience of Designing even 4th gen aircraft .
 
It's just the initial numbers. The earlier number was 16+123. That 16 became 24, so you can't count those in. 123-41-19 = 63 remaining to be ordered.

Or they may go for more Romeos.
Why would they give some "initial number" to a yet to start development helicopter ? It's definitely a full forcast. It could just mean they will go for more Romeos.
 
Why would they give some "initial number" to a yet to start development helicopter ? It's definitely a full forcast. It could just mean they will go for more Romeos.

For imports they gotta spell out the final number. For domestic projects, there is no need to.