Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) on Friday received a Request for Proposal (RFP) for 15 limited series Light Combat Helicopters (LCH) from the Indian Air Force (IAF) and the Indian Army.
This development comes days after the IAF issue the RFP to HAL for manufacturing 83 Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) in Mk-1A configuration.
LCH is a 5.5 tonne class multirole attack helicopter developed by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and is intended to play a major role in providing close air support to ground forces. It is the only attack helicopter in the world which can operate at heights of 12,000 feet. Presently, four technology demonstrators are under flight testing.
The limited series production is a precursor for full fledged serial production. Of the 15 helicopters, five are for the Army and 10 for the IAF.
On August 26 this year then Defence Minister Arun Jaitley launched the production of LCH at Bengaluru and the Initial Operational Configuration (IOC) documents of the basic version were handed over to HAL.
The IAF has out forward a requirement for 65 LCH and the Army for 114 of these attack helicopters.
