NEW DELHI, February 8: In a significant development, the Indian-built Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH) successfully landed on the Siachen Glacier at 14,000 feet with a payload of 750 kgs as part of its flight trial on Thursday.The ALH has been indigenously designed by the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL), Bangalore with assistance from Eurocopter (Germany). Speaking to The Indian Express, HAL chairman C G Krishnadas Nair said, "This is another milestone for the company. HAL is happy that the cold weather trials of the ALH has been successful and the crew has safely returned to Bangalore."The ALH will be the second helicopter capable of landing on the Siachen Glacier. Till now, only the Cheetah (with the Indian Air Force and the Army Aviation Corps) could land there.Former HAL chairman R N Sharma, who was also closely involved with the AL 4H project, said, "This is the first rotary wing design undertaken by the aeronautical industry in South Asia. The ALH will help put India on the internationalaeronautical map. Every Indian should be proud of this achievement."This development will also facilitate validation of the ALH's performance and help towards freezing the design prior to serial or mass production. Essentially, the performance validation will help the military to induct the ALH around the middle of the year.The 4.5 ALH in the medium-lift category may now be able to help the economy in fighting the Siachen War. The ALH's accomplishment could amount to a higher efficiency in transporting loads, measured in tonnes per hour, to the glacier. The Cheetah can carry only 200 kgs and has a capability of 1 tonne per 5.5 hours.Another aspect of the ALH's ability to land in Siachen is that free-dropping supplies and stores can now be curtailed. Free-dropping increases the weight of the load due to the packaging materials involved. This unnecessarily reduces the effective payload. Moreover, free-drops also result in losses as the items sometimes fall into crevasses.However, the IAF is nothappy with the ALH as it has failed to measure up to the Air Staff requirements in terms of Basic Empty Weight (BEW) which was supposed to be lower. A higher BEW distorts the other parameters of the ALH. For instance, the ALH was to have lifted 300 kgs to 19,000 ft in the Siachen Glacier, which, according to book calculations, may not be possible. However, Sharma explained that the extra weight could be shaved off during refinements during the serial production process.
