On the heels of the maiden flight of HTT-40 (PT-2), HAL carried out the first flight of Light Utility Helicopter (LUH)-PT-2 on May 22, 2017, at its facility in Bengaluru, India. The chopper was flown by chief test pilot Wing Cdr (Ret’d) Unni K Pillai, and test pilot Wing Cdr (Retd) Anil Bhambhani. The flight duration was about 22 minutes.
These maiden flights of indigenous aircraft are a testimony to HAL’s rapid progress towards its ‘Make in India’ campaign both in fixed- and rotary-wing segments.
“These prototypes add strength to ongoing test flights to achieve operational clearance cutting the time frame,” said Shri T. Suvarna Raju, CMD-HAL.
The LUH PT2 has a modified tail boom and incorporates improvements based on feedback from testing of LUH PT1. The first flight of LUH PT1 was carried out on Sept. 6, 2016, and further envelope expansion flights are in progress. LUH PT-1 made its flight demonstration during the international air show Aero India-2017 held in February 2017.
HAL plans to carry out further flight testing on PT1 and PT2 in the months ahead to freeze the helicopter configuration by end of this year. Senior officials from HAL, representatives from RCMA (H/c), AQA, IAF and Army were present during the flight.
