When Will India Build Its Own Passenger Aircraft Hal Cmd Dk Sunil

TITLE: When will India Build Its Own Passenger Aircraft? | HAL CMD DK Sunil | Episode 54 CHANNEL: Prof Mahesh Panchagnula DATE: 2026-05-14 ---TRANSCRIPT--- When do you think we will be flying commercially in our own aircraft?

I can tell you in the next 5 years we ourselves are going to build a civil aircraft under license. I think next 5 years you’re going to have civil aircraft built in India but Indian abinio clean sheet designed aircraft coming into production maybe a decade because these are safety critical and they take a long time. So we talking to 20 20omes here. Yes. Yes. In their lifespan definitely no doubt about it. In fact, exciting thing that I see is uh gas turbine technology will definitely be in the forefront in the next decade. Gas turbines are going to become so dominant. A lot of money and research is going into it. Why is aviation important for India? Why we should build an indigenous aerospace industry? It’s not that Russia doesn’t have troops. Even in the Iran case, you’re seeing the America thoughts whether to send in troops because the casualties will air power becomes very important in that as it’s like a standoff capability in future. That’s the way I think wars will be fought right from the small drones to the UK cavs the fighters and [music] the stealth fighters it is going to be the force of choice in [music] any conflict like you have seen even in our synindu the idea was we had to send a message but keep it under control and you know don’t let it escalate to a full-blown war and this is a way that uh the message is sent it is going to become the dominant theme in all uh future wars and Every air force, every country is now building these capabilities. [music] [music] Namaskar and welcome to another episode of the Professor Mahesh podcast. your resource to help you make informed career decisions. As we like to think, this is your future simplified. This podcast is brought to you by IITM Global, an initiative of the Office of Global Engagement at IIT Madras. Learn more about their activities through the link in the description below this video. Wings for a new India, that’s our theme for the day today. Every one of us has an aspiration to fly. The aspiration to fly is as old as mankind in some sense. And the organization that has for the longest time been the wings for India and will continue to give us newer wings. Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, a Maharatna company, a defense PSU that has been at the forefront of taking India to the global stage. Just to put this in context, if you think of how many countries in the world are are able to manufacture their own fighter jet, you can count on less than two hands. India is in that club thanks to H. And it’s my absolute honor and delight today to be talking to the person leading that organization, Mr. DK Sunil, chairman and managing director Hindustan Aeronautics Limited. Thank you, sir, for making the time to join this conversation. Pleasure to be here. Thank you. When you look back on your journey, uh what first drew you to to aerospace engineering and then into this career trajectory? Yeah, I had a love of aircraft right from my school days. I wanted to actually be a fighter pilot and uh I did pass the NDA also. But the day I had my interview for the NDA, I had my engineering entrance and my mom was definitely very emotional that I would not go to the uh air force. So I I ended up in becoming an engineer. Eventually that was always a passion. So when I got the offer of so many public sectors and HL so the choice was you know to go for HL because that was at least I would be closer to aircraft in some way. So that’s how I think u got into HL and uh it’s been a very exciting journey today uh almost 39 years short in aerospace and aeronautics aeronautics a few months short of 39 years so I think it’s been a wonderful journey it just looks like it started just some time ago but what were your early years like I mean what got you into this love for flying was there an environment around you Yeah. I mean uh we are a family of engineers. My grandfather was a civil engineer in British Times and my father worked for HMD. So uh that uh technology or that kind of uh background has been there all people working either in some of the other those days it was all public sectors. So I think that um it was more or less u assumed that you would go into some technical line. I mean um uh we don’t have doctors as far as you can see in our family. We’re all engineers. So I think uh the passion uh interest in aircraft uh started. I used to read a lot of books of Second World War books and all that. So we used to read about the Spitfires and things. So probably that’s where it triggered. One of the differences between being an aerospace engineer and say uh an electrical engineer is if a bright electrical engineer came up with some idea it goes through the lab testing productization and within 3 four years they can see it in the field or even less. Many times aerospace engineering requires some extreme patience. What would I as a young person how did you convince yourself that this is still okay? No, I think being part of this itself was so exciting, you know, part of the company which makes these kind of aircraft HF24 which was a supersonic aircraft which we built in the uh ‘7s and 80s. So I think uh being part of this itself was a you know you came to when you enter the factory and you see uh aircraft you see helicopters so that itself gives you a lot of enthusiasm but as you say today I think um this kind of uh a multidisciplinary project if you see if you look at an aircraft it’s not one one team that does it you have aerody electronics, fluid dynamics, structures, I mean name it. Everything comes into play. A lot of hella lot of electronics. Everybody has to work together. The control law for example for a LCA which is a totally unstable aircraft. So uh I think that uh it’s it’s a it’s an intellectual u I would say dream that you know when you you want such complicated stuff or you know it makes uh such aircraft fly. So that I think is a is a very exciting thing for any engineer. Obviously at the younger age you’re looking more at you know doing something which is uh over the top in terms of intellectual content. It’s only later as you go along you you you have to look at other things to make it a reliable aircraft and other things but initially it’s the I think the intellectual challenge. I think that romantic view of engineering is actually good. Yes. Yes. It must be there at at younger days. I remember uh my uh BTE project was in C at that point. C was not even known and there was I remember one book available by Karnne Richie a yellow colored book about 50 100 pages and we had a a professor who had come from IC who had worked on it. We didn’t know we took the plunge and we wrote a compiler in C. Today if I would look at it I’d say it’s a full hardy enterprise you know you’ve never even known the language but we did it that time so many times I think uh uh I think that’s required that kind of idealism also is good at that age where it makes you do a lot of wonders without knowing how complicated it is. Let’s switch gears and talk about uh the broader aerospace and aviation in India. Let’s frame the problem. Why is aviation important for India? What are the two three main important persuasive reasons why we should build an indigenous aerospace industry? HL is already part of it. But why should it be bigger? I think it has been well demonstrated in the last couple of wars that you have seen classically in the Ukraine war and the recent Iran war. You can see that there is a hesitancy to use ground troops at the beginning. Earlier it used to be the other way around. You just put the ground troops first world war, second world war. Today it’s the other way. You use air power to first uh create a a overwhelming scenario where perhaps peace can come. So you try to avoid having ground troops. So even in Ukraine if you see it’s not that Russia doesn’t have troops or but you could have uh you know huge number of casualties even in the Iran case you’re seeing the America is still uh having two uh a couple of you know uh thoughts whether to send in troops because the casualties will so I think air power becomes very important in that as it’s like a standoff uh capability. So uh in future that’s the way I think wars will be fought. You will have uh a variety of aircraft uh right from the small drones to the UKavs to the uh the fighters and the stealth fighters all this variety will be there for different roles. So uh it is going to be the uh force of choice in any conflict first like you have seen even in our synindur that the idea was we had to send a message but keep it under control and you know don’t let it escalate into a full-blown war and this is a way that uh the message is sent that we will not tolerate this kind of thing. So it is going to become the dominant theme in all uh future wars and every air force every country is now building these capabilities. M and just to sort of explain to the audience when we import an aircraft let’s take the Rafal or any other import it does not come with completely no strings attached right it’s not like I buy a mobile phone from a vendor and the mobile phone or mobile phone is actually a bad example but let’s take a where the product is fully under my control right therefore building an indigenous version of it is very important in some way yes of course you see today uh Finally it comes down to a weapons platform. So if you look at the LCA or the Rafal finally it’s a fighting platform and unless you have the control of the software in terms of the mission computer in terms of the flight control computer like how do you integrate new stuff and when you have to go back to the OEM every time there is a dependency correct and today given the kind of geopolitical situation which can just flip overnight uh there there are no choices we have uh gone through this uh phase you know we were also uh manufacturing under license during the mig days but as we went ahead we realized that these strings that you’re talking about are very uh very critical you can’t integrate anything new without those controls so that’s how the whole journey of indigen indigenous aircraft has started we have built the the alh which is called the dhuv we have built the pchand which is the attack helicopter we have built the LC CA now we’re building the light utility helicopter all these aircraft uh today the kind of control that we have we can change the software of the mission computer of the flight control computer that kind of control when you want to integrate new weapons it gives you a total strategic freedom so I think uh that defines the strength of a country in the future that how How much of independence do you have if it comes to a crunch situation? uh we are seeing that uh you know even US NATO today they are exchanging uh pleasantries unpleasantries I would say right so if that’s the kind of situation that can happen then as a country and with our history where we were you know under colonial rule for a long time we were learned a very bitter lesson so I think uh there are no two ways about it we have to build our technology And we must have control of that. We’ll come back to this. But let’s also position the civilian angle. The civilian aviation angle today all you know India is a it’s like exploding in civil aviation and all the aircraft are being imported. Uh what’s where is that that space headed uh uh in some way? I think uh that has been an area where a lot of investment is required and uh HL has been doing that. We have now uh the ALH DUV we are now getting it civil certified. We will do it in the next few months. So we will have a helicopter which can be used in the civilian applications. We have a Hindustan 228 which is 80 18seater aircraft which we have certified which we are using in the northeast. But the kind of commuter aircraft that you’re talking about the 100 seater NL is working on a 90-seater it’s called the RTA but still in that uh sanction uh phase. So I think the investments are huge. Uh for example a a 100seater aircraft of say the A320 kind of class the investments for aid design are massive. we’re talking anywhere upwards of uh 20,000 25,000 crores maybe more. So I think that kind of investment has not happened but I think it will happen. We have taken one step h that uh we are tying up with the Russians to manufacture the SJ00 which is 100 seater. So at least we will start the manufacturing but uh this has been a an area where we are focused on the military but civil will uh I think happen eventually uh in terms of smaller aircraft maybe 40 seaters uh 60 seaters perhaps going to the uh A320 class later. I feel like with the distribution of airports in India like the larger more developed countries have more or less evolved a hub and spoke model of flying. Maybe we can have our own model with the smaller aircraft which could be different from the way the west looks at aviation. Our research indicates, market research indicates there’s a very good market for a 4050 seater because the smaller airports do not have a their uh typically runway lengths are about 1.7 to 2 km which can accommodate uh 1.7 I would say which can accommodate the 4050 seaters but not the bigger aircraft. So there’s a very good market for that and uh I’m sure those kind of aircraft a lot of private sector uh are also interested u so perhaps uh in the next uh decade you will have at least all of this getting manufactured in the India okay may not be abio design there will definitely get manufactured even the even the the large aircraft manufacturers the boeings and the airbes have significant manufacturing footprint already in India India don’t they? Yeah they they source a lot of components substructures assemblies subasssemblies and components from them but uh nothing of the scale of an assembly line but so it’s more of a component supply so uh H sits at the intersection of technology manufacturing defense and in some sense national expectations so let’s look at you know your previous role as the director of R&D and engineering at HL which is a very crucial role role to en to bring these stakeholders together. What are the elements of doing good engineering in an aircraft? How or in in the field of aerospace engineering? We graduate a small army of aerospace engineers from all our colleges. Um but when they come into the workforce, what does that work environment look like? What is it that what are the excitement? What is the excitement in that space there? I think today uh the freedom to experiment is there at least in companies like HL or ADA or NAL or whatever a lot of experiment is allowed. So you are given projects and you’re more or less allowed to work. So uh unlike uh many of the companies uh which have R&D centers here G the so-called GCC’s they’re very strictly bounded. they will give you a small part of it and you may never know where it fits in. But if you look at our engineers uh if he’s working on a control or he’s working on a rotor blade design or somebody’s working on the structure aerody aeros structure all these they are part of the group and they see the whole product and they know where it fits in. That’s what gives a very good uh system. As you grow up, you have to get that system design uh you know idea of how this whole system functions which doesn’t happen if you’re you know in a cubby hole. Most of the times that’s what happens. I I have had wonderful uh engineers work with me who have left for you know better prospects and go to some of the MNC’s in Bangalore and many of them call me and say sir yeah I was doing more exciting work because here it’s a very small defined window and I work that’s it and nothing beyond that and they will never allow you to go beyond that so I think that’s the first thing you can work on the system and you get an access to everything how it happens and how the whole system develops that’s that’s the first part I think the second thing is uh today I see uh when when we graduated um matlab was you know very infancy you know hardly heard of hard heard of you know we would still use logarithmic tables and things like that but today’s generation is coming out of college with u you know mat lab is is like a calculator a mat lab sim link and so on. So I think that’s the exciting part what I see that uh the speed at which they can iterate I think that’s the biggest part and building models iterations I see a a tremendous opportunity in that where uh we have put together some teams for example to develop control laws for the helicopters and uh that was [clears throat] one of the PhD projects of one of our thesis of one of our engineers at IIT Kanur and he had done it and then we took it from there and he we put him in the group he worked with the professors and you know built a beautiful control law in less than 2 years it’s already flying incidentally we had contracted a foreign OEM for that and uh 8 years down the line he has not delivered but our boys did it in two years so that’s the kind of uh enthusiasm that’s there and the kind of uh cutting edge work we do uh integration of a weapon for example flutter analysis wing load analysis that kind of stuff is just you can’t get it anywhere anywhere so so I think from a a job satisfaction from an excitement nothing unmatched in the kind of work hal NAL or ADA or some of these labs do it’s just u wonderful and we were earlier talking about this that your engineering team is not just a single striped aerospace or mechanical team. You need you have a widely multid-disciplinary team which means this industry can absorb practically any stream of engineering. Let’s talk to what are the roles that you see I mean what are all the different roles say for a material scientist or a or other disciplines in yes in fact uh uh my biggest worry is material science today we are working on gas turbine engines and u TBC is an issue thermal barrier coatings right we we have a particular type but as the temperatures go up you need different types of codings I don’t see any any group working on that So thermal barrier coatings are very important. Then u you know fatigue properties in a gas turbine engine that’s a one area where we need a lot of work to be done. We’re talking about smart skins today on the aircraft right where you you get uh live feedback as the aircraft ages and what happens. So I can see that uh it’s it’s like a it’s a like a universe in itself uh where you have the controller for example controllers are becoming more complicated. You have tailless aircraft controllers as you know with tailless aircraft the controllers are so complicated. How do you simulate that? How do you test that? How do you test it before you come to the aircraft because certification? So I can see that every single discipline materials aerodynamics structures um of course the the software part is more well understood. I mean the software I would say the coding is more of a known area right code it then do the verification and so on. Those things are well established but uh today how do we bring in AI? AI I mean the way we broad the field of avionics avionics is it how do you electronics reliability for example um we used to do the reliability analysis on a on a box so you have this uh you know probability numbers for the failure of the component and you put it through a software and you’ll arrive at a number that it should fail in about 5,000 hours but it’ll fail in 300 hours or it’ll fail in 500 So, so what’s where’s the problem? The problem is that it’s a very ideal kind of modeling. How do you improve? Today, even today, I’m telling you, we still don’t have good models. How we can model a box, the thermal, the heat. Today, the biggest problem in all our electronic boxes that we do is thermal uh management. You have processors which are consuming huge amounts of power. So and you put four on a board the board boils literally you will have you know how do you manage that uh temperature so we are trying people have tried different things like you know maybe uh there are some copper planes in between and things like that but still uh that’s a it’s a open area thermal management is a very big open area reliability so I can see that across all weights, software, hardware, structures, lightweight. For example, uh landing gears are quite heavy. So, how do you make it lighter? Um, we’re talking about dual pressure systems, hydraulics today. You know, if you have to sustain supersonic, then you need a higher pressure. So, we’re talking about dual pressure pumps and dual pressure systems, subsonic, supersonic. These are all new concepts which uh so I can see that every single department today needs to work on the aircraft. That’s the that’s the kind of inter interdisciplinary effect effort and uh the latest two trends is one is of course sensor fusion. You have dozens of sensors on the aircraft. you have radars, you have passive systems, IR systems and uh they’re all looking at targets. Now you need to merge that and give a common picture. And now with the entry of the latest, you know, AI, how do we bring in AI and ensure that it will work in a in a defined fashion? This is the biggest challenge. M we can bring it in but uh we’ve done it I I would say in some small fashion uh we had uh we have made a an Alexa for the aircraft if I may say it’s called the voice activated control system. The only thing is Alexa works in nice environments like this but this has to work under 110 dB 115 dB of noise in the cockpit. Correct. Right. So we built uh something based on a HMM uh which is working well. But uh as you get into more and more complicated uh neural networks and how do we how do we ensure that it will behave in a certain way. This is a very big challenge and there are no answers as of now. Uh nobody knows how to certify it. You can put it in but how do you certify it? M so I mean the field is open we are still talking in some sense design at the design stage of the aircraft right let’s switch to manufacturing let’s assume we are able to design one of these platforms where are the challenges in India to manufacture these in the hundreds you know you’ve committed to you know over 100 LCA being delivered in the next few years for example our LCA wing it’s a composite structure and there’s something like 10,000 holes to be drilled out and and and it’s a material which can flex easily, right? So now we do it in a a graded fashion. We do it on a subjig and all. So for example, robotics, how do we do it in one go with the kind of laser precision that we need? How do we do it? It’s a still question. We are talking to a lot of companies for robotic drilling and doing that. And uh you look at uh even in the manufacturing how do we put it together at a sub assembly equip it at a sub assembly lane put it together for example hydraulics hydraulic piping fuel systems how do we design design part but from design to manufacture how do we method we call it methodization how do you methodize it that you can do it at a subasssembly and then put it together. So you can then bring in a vendor ecosystem to to sort of you need that compartmentalization to bring in the vendor ecosystem. Yes, we have done that to some extent. The LCA today is built in the private sector also. The center fuselage comes from one company, the uh wings come from one company, the rear fuselage comes from a company and then we couple it. So to that extent we have modularized it. But going to the next level of even putting all the pipelines, looms and all that and bringing it together that’s one big challenge which we are. Do you think through these issues at the design stage itself that it has to be somewhat modular to bring in this vendor ecosystem? I think we have learned it the hardware uh initially when the LCA was done uh or the helicopters were done the whole focus was on getting it done. But as you said as we went into production you realize that it cannot be partto- part specific. For example, if a wing is not interchangeable or or a part is not interchangeable then it’s it has to be matched to the aircraft. It becomes a problem in the field. If you had to do that so over a period of time we have now uh in the newer projects we are doing it from the 3D models. we manufacture directly from the 3D models and we inspect with the 3D models so that the uh interchangeability aspect is now much better. So I think it’s an evolution but today it’s very clear to us that this uh manufacturability design for manufacturers they say DFM is something which we drill to our juniors that it has to be done from day one. they have to talk to the methodization manufacturing people at the initial stages otherwise down the line is very expensive trying to correct it one more aspect of aerospace [clears throat] engineering particularly is that the safety margins are very thin right let’s say if I’m a civil engineer I do my calculations then multiply by a a number called factor of safety right how do you how do you drill in this mentality to operate in a very thin razor thin safety margin sort of an environment that is uh still an issue with us also because people would like to play safe as you said where you can take a factor of 1.1 people would take 1.5 and you’ll end up with a weight and then you have to do a weight reduction so that’s that uh margins are there but uh I think uh it is basically a very structured process the way we do right from each stage there is a review uh PDR CDRs we do that Then we test the specimens, we test the structure. That’s why if you see the projects are quite long in the sense each stage is validated before it really gets into the aircraft. A lot of uh uh simulation and testing happens otherwise it doesn’t go into the aircraft. So I I think uh the emphasis is today more on testing. We should move towards more of simulation. That’s where the speed will come. But I think the structured process and because safety is a very critical thing. You have a pilot and also these are very you know big engines and very heavy aircraft. So I think uh that process is a very structured one. That’s what uh when we really fly the aircraft there’s a lot of confidence because a lot of testing has gone into that priority. So let’s u look at the let’s gaze into the crystal ball and look at the future of flight globally. Uh we’ll start with civilian but we’ll also look at the the defense side of uh where the where the aerospace engineering is taking. What technologies do you see that are that are exciting on the global stage or on the on the indigenous national stage that are that you will see coming onto an aircraft say a decade or less from now? I see that this uh what they call uh you know this air taxis and things like that is going to become quite ubiquitous that is six seaters, 10 seaters, eight seaters. Uh I I did see one in the Paris air show very very impressive with a lot of fans of course but uh that’s going to be one direction that’s going to come up. We also saw one very interesting concept uh in Russia uh where u you see the uh the power density of these batteries is an issue. Correct. So uh they have a very interesting concept which we are also looking at. You use a gas turbine to generate a constant power. M you know instead of driving a proper where the uh the gas turbine becomes more complicated because you have to match it to a gearbox and all that you use it like a power source and then you charge a battery and then you run electric motors bit like my hybrid car exactly right that’s a very interesting concept I saw that your gas turbine is running at a constant speed constant RPM and your reliability and power that you generate in a very compact space it can be very efficient very efficient it generates a lot of power in a compact face and then you get the advantages of the the electric motor and the control that you have in terms of you know electronic control. I think this is a very interesting concept I saw that in the future that will come up and uh the other trend I see which will happen which has happened say in computers and elsewhere is uh there’s going to be a lot of uh opensource stuff that I think will get into this. it’s already there perhaps but uh that is it’s probably going to become like a do-ityourself assembly kind of thing that’s what I feel today you can see in the smaller drones we can put it together so perhaps uh that will extend to the medium class of aircraft but uh the controllers perhaps is something which we need to work on in fact one of the concept which I have proposed in many forums is we need to have some sort of a a sort of UAV alliance if if I would use the word uh because most of the controllers are Chinese and there’s a lot of doubt you know what is there in the software back doors trap doors and so on perhaps that’s one thing which we should put together so that you have a a u stack of components different classes of components which people can use to build it build different systems that’s something uh I feel is going to be the future. The way um the way it has happened in other sectors that you can put together for example we talk about softwaredefined radar today radio software defined radar software defined radio and software defined radar so you can get those components the standard blocks and you write the software so perhaps that is one trend I see which will happen in the future that you should you get a lot of standardized components and then it’s up to the constructor to put it together and then configure the system. One of the sort of the challenges and we alluded to this earlier of aerospace industry is that the innovation life cycles are a a bit long. Yes. Right. But the marketplace on the other side I mean the the both the vendor marketplace and the expectations on the customer side are moving faster than this ecosystem can respond. How do you match these time scale? I think that requirement is there that we have to crash these time timelines. There is no doubt about it. We can’t we can’t do 10 years and all. I think we’ll have to do it much shorter. But uh the emphasis has been anywhere in the world a regulator will always ask you for enough evidence. Right now we do evidence by testing right and testing involves a lot of manpower. or you have to build the things you have to make rigs and that’s what takes the time the investment and so on. So I think that the important thing to do is how do we generate this test data through more and more through simulation and previous data. I think that will cut down this cycle if you see otherwise it’s simply a question of uh convincing that this can go into the aircraft because of enough evidence. I think that evidence generation must come more from simulation. Okay. That’s where I think there is a serious lacuna and a lot of work needs to be done in terms of building models right uh today our gas turbine we’re building and uh I see that the iterations can take anywhere between 6 to 9 months there is a vibration issue and they realize uh or perhaps hypothesize that there is a bearing mount issue and then they would do an iteration and do the bearing mount perhaps the bearing mount is not the issue. So how do you get an integrated model of the vibration of a gaster wine? So I think that you alluded to this earlier the simulation first the digital twin level simulation first is the only way. Yeah digital twin that will compress these timelines where your iterations will come down perhaps instead of a dozen iterations if you can do three or four and then your timelines compress. So I think moving away for example a lot of our uh software it is uh what we call fly fix fly loop. You do that the pilot flies for Anna comes back give a big list of problems and then we go to the rig then you find that your rig is not designed to test this particular thing. It doesn’t have the capability. So then you modify the rig and all and then you find that you can fix it. You can find the problem on the rig itself. So I think that’s uh so more of ground testing today you know your our radar uh similar testing and so on. Now we are trying to build more extensive rigs where those kind of uh aircraft uh level scenarios can be simulated created then this loop will shorten. We had alluded to this earlier. Air aircraft manufacturing globally as an industry is a very profitable industry like all of the Boeing’s uh h included you know you’re a very profitable company. Not just that you have a 4year almost all companies globally have a 4-year order book. Now anybody anywhere else in the world would have said this is an amazing luxury to have but earlier off camerara you said this is a bit of a problem. tell us about why I mean what is the underlying what is exactly the issue I mean it’s a good thing in many ways right that you have you know four year runway of your order book you know what you need to be doing profitably to remain profitable the uh Ukraine war uh has you know uh Europe is now spending more on its uh defense I think they have gone up to uh 3 to 5% of their GDPs each country has to push it up similarly uh after the covid there has been a huge explosion in what is called that revenge tourism so much so that some of the uh mills which produce these special alloys they’re fully booked for the next 5 years by the big uh engine manufacturers um Airbus Boeing and so on so it’s very difficult for you to get a slot and if your quantities then they’re booking the whole plant so Are you I’m sorry to interrupt sir. Are you telling me that if all the parts were available to you at the snap of a finger, you could assemble an aircraft much faster than we right now can? Yes, definitely. Because supply chain has become a very crucial thing today because a lot of stuff we don’t manufacture in the country or we don’t make some things we have to import. [snorts] Uh so uh that’s one part of the supply because they have huge orders from their own countries and obviously that will dominate. No, but even the global OEMs have big order books and they which is mean it is not an India problem. It’s not an India problem. So, uh we have a material problem because the mills are booked and the all the other LRU manufacturers are also booked by their own countries. So, this is a big issue that we are facing and it will continue for the next few years as I see because uh Europe is ramping up uh their defense procurements and everywhere the demand is there. So in fact we are now spending a lot of money with uh Midani and our own companies to see that how do we make these alloys titanium alloys castings uh nickel based alloys which are all required for the high temperature performances. So this we are trying to get it made in the country. So it uh this is as you say a an issue even though order books are good uh the supply chain requires a lot of effort and as top management we spend a lot of time monitoring this uh supply chain. Mhm. Which means that there is room for some bright young men and women to step in and maybe indigenously develop say the alloying technologies and and build a good viable business in that space. Yes. is a material science I see is one thing which has been uh I would say underinvested we have not put in enough money okay because obviously it’s available uh I mean uh as a company also we have been importing a lot of stuff because it’s available but now as the squeeze is happening we realize that we have to find our own internal sources so I see materials is one area where there’s a huge uh potential uh for developing all these uh materials and uh also composites uh composites for this lowweight uh low drag aircraft. We need better and better composites. So there’s a lot of scope in material science, materials research, development and manufacturing. Specialty alloys in some specialty alloys especially uh nickel based alloys, high temperature alloys for the gas turbines. Sure. uh that’s an area quoting technologies as I said that’s very very critical that we need to do that so I think it’s good to help our young men and women with some directions of you know where the opportunities are in the future let’s talk a little bit about drones you briefly talked about drones this last war in Iran showed you know the power of you know let’s say mastering drone technology or for lack of another way and how an asymmetric war can We fought with just drones and the sales uh right? So tell us a little bit about where India is on you know helping on our own de drone development and where does HC drone manufacturing where does it fit into the into the bigger bill? I think the uh in India we have a lot of startups working on the smaller drones. Typically uh most of them operating below I would say 110 120 kg class of drones. Most of them are perhaps the 10 20 kg class small ones with small uh endurances. The bigger ones which are you know IC engine driven they have longer endurances. Uh so there are a lot of players in this no doubt and every day you can see now that the shahid also has become popular there are a lot of people going for that but again it comes down to I think uh some basic building blocks are still we are heavily dependent on China for example the controller itself comes from China and in the synindu recently uh we did hear uh through some sources that many of them could not work in a GPS denied environment. ment right so I think uh a lot of action is happening a lot of companies are coming in and uh definitely new products will come out in the coming years but a lot of them are already getting deployed but they are typically reconnaissance drones or the smaller ones uh loitering munition so I think that’s a very uh price sensitive market and there are too many players so HL we are not going into that we are building the bigger ukaps So we have a project called warrior cats warrior where we’re building right now a 2 and a half ton ukare uh with our own uh gas turbine which is developed by h initially and later we’ll go to heavier so I think that is the direction we are going you know the three tons the five ton uh kind of aircraft with which can carry bombs and missiles or it could be used as a reconnaissance and it is what is called the wingman remotely piloted by a manned aircraft through data link uh you control the aircraft. So that is the direction in which we are working and uh we’ve done a very interesting thing. We have a kiran trainer which is a twinseater where you have the the traininee and the trainer both sitting next to each other. So we have pulled out the trainy seat and we put the actuators the flight control computer in that. It’s called the optionally manned combat aircraft OMA. So now that is uh going to fly maybe in uh this year and so initially we take off for the pilot and then he hands over to the computer and it’ll be controlled by the ground and you know once this uh refinement happens the cruise and then the then we’ll move to automatic takeoff and landing. If this is done then we pull out the pilot. So this is the way we are refining this and then later it comes into the UK type because safety is uh very important. So this is something we are trying to refine that uh control law and algorithms. So I think that is the direction we are going in future you will have this optionally manned uh aircraft where you could put a pilot or you could remove him. I think that’s the best combination uh or uh an unmanned controlled by a manned vehicle. That is the direction I think we are going. Very interesting. You alluded to this earlier. You let’s talk about startups. We see even at IIT Madras there are a couple of aerospace startups that are doing some exciting work. This broader within India the startup ecosystem. Where are the opportunities in the aerospace sector? I do see that uh [sighs] we need this kind of GPS uh drones which can operate in denied environments. Okay. jamming environments where GPS is jammed. That’s one area I think a lot of effort has to go in. That’s a project that a startup can take up. I mean I feel like there are some projects only a h can do. There are others that a smaller company also. How do you work in a GPS denied environment? I think that’s one area where a lot of effort has to go in because this was one of the sort of u shortfalls that we saw that it can happen and I think the Iranians have done a very good job on that that it so this is one area where I can see a a lot of uh effort a lot of effort is required um the second is in the smaller engines itself you need a lot of small engines. Uh we build our own engines typically a few kilon to it. But so I think you’ll need a range of engines uh turborop edge jets uh which uh these small companies can I I did see that a few of them have developed 1 kon newton and things like that but that’s an area where really we’ll see a lot of requirement I think even even [clears throat] in that class of engines the mechanical reliability I mean the bearings the bearing mount that is essenti it all comes down to that yes yes really the engineering there is no compromise on that and uh that kind of effort to build the engine I think a few companies have done that but that’s a very exciting area because as you said today you will have a combination of large number of drones small drones which have this nuisance value or diversionary value and you will have a few aircraft of this larger class which can do the real damage building blowing up bridges or whatever but uh this large number will have a variety of engines as I see you see today even the uh the electrics are not going to be very they don’t have endurance correct you can’t uh the the power density is so low that you can’t have endurance so for endurance you will need a a gas turbine correct of some sort or propeller or whatever so I think those compact engines is what I see is one area where they can work and build a series of engines in that category. Very interesting. Let’s talk to students and you know a student you know aerospace engineering comes with an intrinsic two thumbs up quotient that there is an aspiration value. We see a bird fly right a student gets excited they study aerospace or any other discipline of engineering. What do you suggest is a good mindset to evolve before they come into this profession? What are the two three traits that you’ll say a good engineer should a good engineering student should develop to enter this profession and succeed? I think first is uh definitely uh the passion that you want to build this kind of stuff. uh but uh I would also as you said earlier uh there has to be an element of patience that you cannot uh expect the kind of u speed at which you see the outcomes perhaps uh like uh uh that you do in other fields. It definitely takes time but uh but the exciting part which I see for them I would ask them is that building these models building those simulation models that is where they are going to see the excitement and that’s the way they should go and they have the uh already the I would say the background with which they will come. Secondly, I think if you look at u most engineers as they go through their career, uh I think today the salaries compared to you know even when we joined things are decent. Even in public sectors we pay very well. A a fresh engineer would get upwards of lack of rupees maybe 1.2 lakhs or so. So so I don’t think the plus a lot of other perks and benefits. So the pay I think is quite decent. So it all boils down to you know what do you do um for 40 years I keep telling my juniors that we are all knowledge workers today. So how do you uh you know maintain this guy here for say 35 years. How do you ensure that you don’t get frustrated or you don’t get depressed? You have to you have to feed this with a lot of intellectual stuff and and this field is has so many challenging problems that you can keep working all your life at least that’s the way I entered HL even today I go to office with that kind of excitement every day even though today it’s more difficult but whenever I get a chance we discuss these kind of issues you know how do you put a fly by wire in a helicopter today you have something so I I think uh that perhaps is the bigger challenge. What I would uh suggest to my younger people is please look slightly longer term. 5 years is too shorter term. Please look at it slightly longer and as you get into that you get experience and you start building systems. The kind of uh satisfaction that you get perhaps is unmatched. I can tell you correct. You know you alluded it to other disciplines of engineering where the cycle times are shorter but anything that is born quickly also dies quickly right so here if you innovated something and it’s on an aircraft you can tell your grandchildren that it that I had a role to play in that you’re right exactly is is very true you know the kind of technologies we build uh they’ll be there for decades decades and uh and once you build a a basic technology it gets into so many platforms. So that’s a wonderful thing and uh as you said some of these things can be flash in the pan. Uh that sort of thing will not hold people. So I I would recommend that that uh have I always um ask people to put a large capacitor wait for a little time and then you will find that uh it becomes more and more interesting. Sure. I think a little bit of capacitance in all our lives is a good idea right the um the last sort of couple of questions I have where do you see in India let’s say looking really out when do you think we will be flying commercially in our own aircraft I mean not all not all the ways all the time but in a reasonably popular uh way would you mean designed here manufactured here you you help us let’s say Vijay to Vishaka okay a little no I can tell you in the next 5 years we ourselves are going to build a civil aircraft okay under license so I think next 5 years you’re going to have aircraft built in India that will happen I think right but a Indian abinio clean sheet designed aircraft coming into production maybe a decade I would a decade that’s very because these are you know uh safety critical and they take a lot. So we are talking to 20 20omes here. Yes. Yes. In their lifespan definitely no doubt about it. In fact uh uh the biggest exciting thing that I see is uh gas turbine technology will definitely be in the forefront in the next decade. Gas turbines are going to become so dominant. Lot of money and research is going into it. That’s one area. Plus the civil aircraft as you say civil helicopters we are already doing. I [clears throat] think that uh is is happening but uh the bigger commuter aircraft perhaps perhaps a decade I would say. Wonderful sir. This has been a very very informative conversation and uh and a very thoughtprovoking one for me as well. Thank you very much for Thank you. It’s a wonderful uh coming coming to you know the elma matter at matas has a lot of fond memories for me and uh you know to it’s it’s always we are built by our teachers there’s no doubt about our teachers our parents so I I am so grateful uh that that this great institution is contributing so much to the nation and um definitely uh we will work HL also will work uh with ITMAras uh as you know we have uh sponsored a scholarship HL scholarship so we will definitely work more and more with itas in terms of projects and uh and technologies so it’s also a matter of great pride for us that for the last 9 years H has been led by NIAT Madras alum thank you with you now yeah thank you thank you very much again for Thank you very much. This has been another episode the Professor Mahesh podcast. Until we meet again, be well, do good and keep in touch. Goodbye. [snorts]