HAL Prachand Helicopter, A New High Altitude Capability for Indian Army and IAF

Be it mountains or desert, helicopters can decisively define the winning edge for an armed force. It’s a battle prove adage.

Thanks to their rapid reach, these rotor machines enable advancing troops to go forward ahead of them and deliver a deadly punch of missiles or bombs or bullets on critical targets. These flying machines are capable of operating in hot deserts or icy cold mountains, depending upon what was their defined role and how they are made.

India’s Prachand helicopter is made by HAL keeping in high altitude warfare requirements, specifically of the Indian Army. No other country has such tough terrain and India is the only country to design and operate helicopters and some equipment for the formidable Himalayan heights. Siachin is an instance.

Naturally, the Indian Air Force is around to counter any attacks and invasive attempts and the two Services share the resources and technologies to strangle an enemy with a combined pincer if need be.

The Army is getting 90 and IAF 66 of these high performance machines made with composite materials, and equipped with high performance systems like Electronic Warfare Systems with day and night 24 x 7 warfare capability. The Glass Cockpit has Multi Function Displays (MFDs), Laser Range Finder as well as the FLIR (Forward Looking Infrared) imaging camera to acquire targets in the pilots’ helmet mounted sights, and then designate a single or multiple targets for attack.

So far, 10 machines have been supplied to the Army and 5 to Indian Air Force.

The power plant, or the Shakti engine, is made by HAL in cooperation and collaboration with French Safran. The same engine is used in Rudra, the armed variant of Light Combat Helicopter. Notably, Safran has a history of long cooperation with HAL, and even has had an office there. I recall having met a distinguished French engineer, Paul Andre Chevrin, from Safran some years back.

With a sleek aerodynamic design, Prachand is operated by two pilots, one of whom looks after the weapons. Besides the Cockpit, some other critical spaces of the helicopter are armour protected.

Prachand has indigenous Helina anti tank guided missiles and European MBDA’s air-to-air Mistral missiles.

A battlefield, including in air and space, is about network centric warfare now, and the Prachand has a data link to connect with ground troops or friendly aircraft. And of course, Prachand is significantly also designed to shoot down even hostile UAVs, now that they are increasingly being deployed in urban warfare.

A very significant feature of modern helicopter and aircraft production is the involvement of the private sector companies. There are so many critical components that need to be made with precision and perfection, and correct raw materials. MOD has laid down specifics, and HAL is already developing a team of capable supply chain manufacturers.

We have an informative report by Lt Gen BS Pawar (Retd) in this edition. May interest some of the readers.

— Gulshan Rai Luthra