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Monday, Aug 23, 2004

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National

Spirit soars as Saras takes to the skies

By Our Staff Reporter

A PROUD MOMENT: Chief Pilot, Squadron Leader K. K. Venugopal, being lifted by the working crew of `Saras,' after its inaugural flight in Bangalore on Sunday. — AP

BANGALORE, AUG. 22. "Team Saras" had reason to celebrate on Sunday as a prototype of the 14-seater light transport aircraft, which was in the making for 15 years, made its formal inaugural flight from the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. airport here at 8.20 a.m.

The flight was the seventh in the first series of 10 flights that started in May.

Present to cheer and support Saras and the National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL) were the Union Minister of State for Science and Technology and Ocean Development, Kapil Sibal, the Director-General of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), R.A. Mashelkar, and V.S. Ramamurthy, Secretary, Department of Science and Technology.

They witnessed the result of an uphill task won against several odds, including the post-Pokhran U.S. sanctions, which almost brought down the project, as Mr. Ramamurthy said. Closer home, many had said that the aircraft was unviable as it was overweight, among other things.

Clean take-off

Piloted by Squadron Leader K.K. Venugopal and Wing Commander R.S. Makker, Saras, named after the saras crane, made a clean take-off, retracting the landing gear as it was climbing. It did two turns, to the left and the right, and flew past the audience before making an equally clean landing. Wing Commander Ram Mohan was the flight test engineer on board.

NAL officials said the aircraft had been registered as VTX SD ("SD" stands for Satish Dhawan, the father figure of Indian space science, who was also the chairman of NAL's Research Council in the late Eighties and convinced the laboratory to develop a civilian aircraft programme.)

Excitement, anxiety

Also cheering were T.S. Prahlad, former Director of NAL, who had overseen much of the development of the aircraft, and B.R. Pai, Director of NAL. As Mr. Prahlad confessed to "much excitement and a little anxiety," the memory of the plane veering off the runway during a recent test flight must have been fresh in his minds. Yet, all that must have seemed worth the while when the prototype was flying high.

"Yes, we have much work to do on the aircraft, but this was the finest morning of my life," said Mr. Mashelkar to the applause from many of the personnel involved in building the aircraft.

Mr. Sibal told presspersons: "This is an achievement that deserves the nation's support." To the project's many critics, he said, "Don't belittle it."

N.R. Mohanty, Chairman of HAL, looked elated. "We want the order to make the first 30 aircraft," he said.

Reducing weight

Mr. Pai said that work on reducing the weight and increasing the power of the aircraft would start in earnest with the construction of a second prototype, work on which was already on. Other improvements needed before commercialisation of the aircraft included making the cockpit and the aircraft cabin more ergonomic.

The programme outlay has been increased from Rs.132 crores in 1999 to Rs. 157.59 crores. The prototype has rear mounted twin turboprop "Pratt" and "Whitney" engines and a pressurised cabin. The aircraft is capable of flying at a maximum speed of 550 km an hour at a cruise altitude of 7.5 km. It is designed to take off and land from short semi-prepared runways.

It could be used as a feeder-line aircraft, air-taxi, and air ambulance and could also be used for executive transport, troop transport, aerial survey and reconnaissance, and light cargo transport, a NAL press release says.

Some 700 personnel from NAL, HAL, the Aeronautical Development Agency, two other CSIR labs, the Defence Research and Development Laboratories, and the Aircraft and Systems Testing Establishment are involved in building the aircraft.

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