Thiruvananthapuram: Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL) chairman N R Mohanty has stressed the need for multi-organisational team effort to achieve self-reliance.

Inaugurating a two-day national seminar on aerospace and related mechanisms (ARMS 2002), organised by Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) here, he said any country that wants to improve the quality of life of its people should pool its resources and foster the growth of organisations that bring technologists together.

VSSC director G Madhavan Nair presided over the function.

Mohanty lauded the mechanism professionals of defence, space, aerospace and industry for making India self-sufficient in critical areas of aerospace and related mechanisms “without which India’s success in these areas could not have been achieved. Mechanisms play a major role in aircraft manoeuvres, satellites and launch vehicles, and weaponry. There is a need for perpetual innovation in the various mechanisms applied for flight control, staging, ejection and deployment of weapons to keep pace with worldwide developments.”

India has crossed several milestones during the recent past in its stride towards creating its own place among the leading nations of the world. The successful flights of the SLV, ASLV, PSLV, GSLV and the light combat aircraft (LCA) were a few of these in which aerospace mechanisms developed by the country were effectively deployed.

The aerospace industry normally lead in the development and application of cutting-edge technologies since aircraft and spacecraft structures and systems need to function with very high reliability and demanding customer specifications, Mohanty added. “Such technological achievements are the result of extensive research and the integration of a multitude of engineering disciplines by aerospace scientists and engineers.”

The need for better understanding and application of these mechanisms has resulted in the emergence of fly-by-wire deployment control of spacecraft appendages, jettisoning mechanisms, integrated flight control systems, nose-wheel steering and internal locking in actuators among other things, he said.

Mohanty described the LCA as one of the few aircraft in the world to have integrated flight control system in addition to several other advanced systems. The flight controls act in coordination with hydraulics, multiple electrical supply and other systems.

The LCA also employed steer-by-wire for nose-wheel steering. Several mechanisms which combined complexity, space constraints, safety and reliability factors have been developed by HAL. They include the mechanical canopy locking systems in open and closed conditions, the landing gear retraction mechanism, the wheel toe-out mechanism for ship deck helicopters and their hydraulically operated quick mooring system used to anchor helicopters, he said.

The VSSC director said it was Indian President A P J Abdul Kalam who had laid the foundation for the evolution of aerospace mechanisms in the late sixties in the Bishop’s House of the St Magdaline Church at Thumba, Thiruvananthapuram, which was the first abode of space technology in India. “It was from that stage that it developed to the present capability of international standards.”

K R Sridharamurthy, the executive director of Antrix, the commercial organ of Indian Space Research Organisation, inaugurated the exhibition which was organised in connection with the seminar. Defence Research and Development Laboratory director Y Prahlada released the proceedings of the seminar and Launch Vehicle Programme Office Director D Narayana Moorthy released the souvenir brought in connection with the seminar.

Earlier, VSSC associate director R V Perumal welcomed the gathering and C B Kartha, the chairman of the local organising committee, proposed the vote of thanks. Some 400 scientists, academicians and industrialists from all over India attended the seminar.