"The Advanced Light Helicopters- Dhruv-- are not helpful in our operations like casualty evacuation and troop reinforcements. They are useless for us. Most of the times these helicopters are under servicing and there are issues about its capabilities to fly beyond a certain height," BSF sources said.
"We have informed the Home Ministry in this regard.
The helicopter keeps developing regular snags," they said.
The air wing in these naxal-affected areas is under the command of the Border Security Force (BSF) and is used by the personnel of CRPF, ITBP, SSB and state police forces.
The BSF air fleet at present has six ALH 'Dhruvs' and two more will soon be inducted.
The Home Ministry, meanwhile, has also finalised a deal to lease six additional helicopters from a private vendor after a tender in this regard was floated last year by the government.
"These helicopters will be in place by June this year and will help security forces deployed for anti-naxal operations,"the sources said.
The present fleet of 'Dhruvs' placed in Raipur (Chhattisgarh) and Ranchi (Jharkhand) are also out of work due to reasons of want of spare parts or requirements of servicing.
The BSF air fleet, according to sources, will also be inducting a large transport plane as the two Avros that it has are non-operational due to technical reasons.
The helicopter was first exported to Nepal and Israel, and is on order by several other countries for both military and commercial uses. Military versions in production are for transport, utility, reconnaissance and MedEvac roles.The Dhruv has become the first major Indian weapons system to have secured large foreign sales. HAL hopes to sell 120 Dhruvs over the next few years, and has been displaying the Dhruv at airshows, including Farnborough and Paris in order to market the Dhruv.
Now what is the way forward if our own forces hate this machine,then what about the foreign buyers. I believe unless HAL takes note of the problem seriously and rectifies them , future of Dhruv depends upon it.
1 comment:
Once back in my studies had applied for project in Hal , and manager there told us to design a prototype Fuel gauge for this helicopter .
When i told him we can use a capacitor technology , as the aircraft can roll in different axis it not practical to use a float .
When i told him this he told do you want to pass power into a fuel tank are you off you mind , a spark will burn the whole copter .
But for reference i was checking some days back about fuel gauge and found that it is the thing used .
This was 13 years back ....
Sad that my thinking and thoughts wer thrown by the manger there ...
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