The National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL) has commissioned a survey to assess the potential market for India?s proposed 90-seater regional transport aircraft. NAL, which is spearheading the national civil aircraft project planned as a public-private partnership, has appointed consultancy firm AT Kearney for the survey, NAL director AR Upadhya told FE.
The report, expected in a month, would look into aspects like airline preferences and cost which could aid key technical decisions such as the choice between turboprop and turbofan engines for the aircraft.
The regional transport aircraft programme aims at tapping the growing domestic demand for air travel by building a plane that can land on shorter runways?potentially opening up over 300 runways and airstrips across India?and which is better suited to Indian conditions, besides being cheaper to own and operate.
A high-powered committee of aerospace scientists and industrialists headed by Isro former chairman G Madhavan Nair aims to prepare a feasibility report on the aircraft project by April, focussing on the aircraft configuration, identifying technologies which need to be developed newly and private participation.
India’s civil aircraft programme comes amid efforts to develop regional aircraft by countries such as China and South Korea which have had a head-start, said John Siddharth, aviation analyst at consultancy firm Frost and Sullivan. ?There is a huge demand for regional aircraft in Asia. There is a need to connect secondary cities and regional aircraft are more viable to connect secondary airports froman airline operation stand point.?
Various estimates by aerospace companies indicate a global demand of 6,000-7,000 regional aircraft, including new acquisitions and replacements, over the next 25 years, with turboprops likely to account for 40% of them, said MS Chidananda, head of the Centre for Civil Aircraft Design and Development and Director of Civil Aviation Programmes at NAL.
The Bangalore-based aserospace research laboratory has already begun the process of setting up a civil aircraft design bureau of about 100 people in Bangalore. It plans to draw experienced hands from organisations such as Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro), Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Hindustan Aeronautics, and also hire people from the private sector.