The Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar witnessed the inaugural flight of India’s own indigenous HTT-40 (Basic Trainer Aircraft - BTA) designed and developed by the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) on June 17, 2016, at HAL airport. The aircraft was flown by Group Captain C. Subramaniam and Group Captain Venugopal for about 15 minutes.

While congratulating HAL, Parrikar said: “The young team has taken a calculated risk and they have flown the aircraft within one year and kept their assurance. The indigenous content on HTT-40 is close to 80 per cent. Almost 50 per cent of the components on HTT-40 are manufactured by private players of the Indian aerospace ecosystem. Here, the role of private players and MSMEs has been significant in the production of parts. The IAF is positive in all these developments”.

T. Suvarna Raju, Chairman and Managing Director, HAL, said: “We are extremely happy that the aircraft had a flawless inaugural flight in the presence of the Defence Minister. The project will now go in full throttle as we aim to get the aircraft certified in 2018. Towards this, HAL will be manufacturing three prototypes and two static test specimens”. HAL launched the detail design of the aircraft by earmarking its internal resources in August 2013. The detailed design phase was completed in May 2015 and from there it has taken only one year to fly the first prototype.

The project includes many first time initiatives such as digital mock up (DMU), real time systems clash analyses, laser tracking of assembly jigs, six degree of freedom, mathematical model, complete glass cockpit, etc. HTT-40 has been designed not only to meet the current requirement of the IAF but also it has provision for role expansion to include weapons for the trainer aircraft.