India to enhance range, capacity of regional civil aircraft
16 Nov 2011
Bangalore: India's proposed regional civil aircraft, still in the concept phase, may have its operating range enhanced to 3200 km and have its seating capacity increased to 110 in a bid to make it operational on international routes, according to a senior official.
So far, the high powered committee on National Civil Aircraft Development (NCAD) has been considering the development of a 70-90 seat aircraft with an operating range of 2,500 km.
"Now we are looking at up to 110 (seating capacity)", said AR Upadhya, a member of the committee, who recently retired as director of the National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL). The lab comes under the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), which is the nodal agency for the project.
"We are looking at increasing the range from 2,500 km to 3,200 km so that it will have some international operations as well", Upadhya said at the inaugural function of fifth Symposium on Applied Aerodynamics and Design of Aerospace Vehicles (SAROD-2011) here. "We are looking at standard configuration as well as long range configuration with increase in capacity in wing area...," he added.
The high powered committee, chaired by former chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) G Madhavan Nair, has set a target of lower costs of acquisition, maintenance and operations and fuel consumption of at least 25 per cent in each of these areas in the proposed design for the aircraft.
The aircraft should be able to take-off from a runway range of 1,600 metres and also from ill-equipped airfields.
