HAL Light Utility Helicopter

Light Utility Helicopter (LUH)
Role	Utility helicopter
National origin	India
Manufacturer	Hindustan Aeronautics Limited
First flight	6 September 2016
Status	Under development
Primary users	Indian Army Indian Air Force
Number built	One prototype

The HAL Light Utility Helicopter (LUH), and the derivative Light Observation Helicopter (LOH), are single-engine light helicopters under development by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited of India.

The HAL LUH (Light Utility Helicopter) is a 3-tonne helicopter exclusively built for the Indian Army and the Indian Air Force to replace the aging fleet of Cheetah and Chetak helicopters. The Indian military have a requirement for 384 helicopters of which 187 helicopters will be built by HAL. Production is planned to begin in 2018 at 10 per year, later on going up to 36 per year and delivery of 187 HAL’s LUHs is to be completed by 2022.

As of 3 November 2012, the bottom structure assembly of the LUH ground test vehicle is complete and has been taken down from the on December 2012. According to HAL, "LUH assembly jigs are modular and gaugeless jigs, concurrently designed along with structure design using 3D CAD. There are five assembly jigs and a coupling jig enabling modular and concurrent build- up of the structure. The jigs are built and validated using state-of-the-art CAMS-Computer Aided Measurement System (laser tracker) to establish high accuracy and stability.

Although originally scheduled to first fly in 2015, the first prototype of HAL LUH (ZG4620) made its maiden flight on 6 September 2016 at Bangalore.

Data from Livefist HAL

General characteristics

Performance

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