“The IAF had placed an order for 10 Cheetals, of which the first batch of four has been delivered. The remaining six are expected to be handed over by September. We expect the IAF’s order to be followed up by the Army and also the Government of India which is looking at procuring helicopters for various roles, especially for internal security,” said R Srinivasan, MD (Helicopter Complex), HAL.AVM Bahadur who received the helicopters said; “The re-engined Cheetals will increase our operational capabilities, especially for high altitude operations. We have faith in HAL and hope it will continue to deliver and provide product support.”
The Cheetal is the re-engined Cheetah helicopter, with replacement of Artouste IIIB with the TM333-2M2 engine. The reduced weight of the TM 333-2M2 engine with better specific fuel consumption has resulted in increased range, endurance and payload. This makes the helicopter more versatile in various roles including search & rescue and missions in high altitude. The Cheetal has been designed to incorporate upgraded features such as light weight modern technology cockpit instruments like electrically driven Artificial Horizon, Directional Gyro, and light weight modern avionics – accurate navigation and homing through GPS, VHF HOMER, Flight Monitoring System (FMS), Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) and Emergency Locator Transmitter.
LiveFist Note: When I visited the 666 Siachen Falcons Cheetah squadron in Leh in 2006, pilots there said that the re-engineed Cheetal was not sufficient to fulfil the IAF’s needs — they mentioned that the entire transmission system and gearbox needed to be changed as well, and if that didn’t happen, the upgraded chopper wouldn’t be a meaningfully more capable platform than the existing Cheetah.
Text & Photos Copyright HAL
why don't these people upgrade one time …all lazy people..if IAF doesnt satisfies with this upgrade whats there a need to upgrade half… if they do full upgrade there will be confidence boost in pilots…and these upgrade will increase there life time and IAF would have time to purchase new light utility helicopter…..
To Anon@5:38 PM
At least use intelligible language. None of your sentences make any sense at all.
Why the hell are we re-engining re-engined engines? And what reason does HAL have to feel so proud of itself? For being able to successfully change an engine? For God's sake, this chopper should have been in a meuseum 20 years ago. What the hell happened to the ALH? The defence forces are really clutching at straws while the DRDO and associates are draging their plump back sides.
Hi Shiv,
Today I was watching your long program in Headline today beginning with India’s Nuclear Submarine to the Kargil war. You and your team members have done a gr8 job. You and Gaurav have discussed many important points of Kargil war which includes govt. no sensitivity over the Kargil battle. This is shameful for the whole country.
I also believe Headline today is the first Indian channel which revealed the Indian top-secret Nuclear Submarine Project INS Arihant (ATV).
Thanks…
They are talking about "improvements", but yet no figures have been released on how much % improvement has happened. Typical HAL bullshit, I feel sorry for IAF chaps who have to fly this rotorcraft.
HAL team is enjoying their life line this way, it seems no one has real patriotic thinking on india, i continuously seeing they have big party for useless things also, speaking more doing zero, nothing to be proud in it .after many decades LCA becomes failure , even it has 60 to 70 % imported things , now they have planned for another 5000 cr for Mca – medium combat aircraft , project to waste another 3 decades, indian govt need to convert HAL partly privatize for better result .
one real thing to be proud is customization of su-30mki, seems to best next to F-22.
Su-30 MKI is not next best compared to F-22. F-18 with its brilliant AESA radar is. Third would be F-16 with its AESA radar (UAE has them and PAF pilots have flown it).
That's the truth, the radar plays such a crucial role in today's BVR and even short range engagements that it dominates the rest of the airframe. Dynamically speaking the Su-30 MKI is one of the best indeed. But as a total package it is even behind Rafale.
AESA is not only the superior thing in aircraft ,the latest order what india placed to russia for 40 nos jets of su30 mki – radar is more powerful in range for AAM missiles. even our LCA has elta 2052 Aesa radar , so you can say su30 mki is inferior to LCA . Only su30 mki has the capable to carry brahmos supersonic air version in world . even though american's are master in Aesa radar they have longer version missile's , but its subsonic. india already sended 2 nos su30 to russia for modification according to it .F-18 & F-16 are superior fighters in world , but the export version is supplied only with AIM120 c version which has 105 km range in air to air combat , which our beautiful neighbor pakis have in inventory. as per f-18 / f-16 the software is converted according to USA , not even a single weapons will eject against US & its close friendly countries, ( the perfect example is iran , iran already had f-15 and other jets of US when it has good relation with US , now its invaluable ,because it will not work against US. That's what in MMRCA franca has offered has 100 % TOT including software source code .
even our LCA has elta 2052 Aesa radar
No it doesn't. USA hasn't cleared Israel to sell it to India. That the Israelis 'offer' it to us is meaningless. The Israelis offer everything to everyone, they always have, they will offer to smuggle enriched Uranium for us if we are willing to pay a few billion. Heck they likely offer 16 year old Ukrainian 'models' all the time to our babus to win orders.
And power is not everything in radar. The US AESA radars may not match the outright power output of Russian radars, but that's a consicous design decision since they don't need. What they lack in power they make up for in precision, reliability and sheer quality. Sacrificing 30-35nm of range (all theoritical brouchure range, since no one launches AAM at fighter sized target at 220 NM) is nothing when you can gurantee an kill within 180 NM. And then there's AESA's ground mode, which annihilates all other radars. I am not a born-to-suck-US-d!ck c0cksucker like many newage Indians, but I recognize where they are better. Let's not quibble and try harder to catch up!
Our ALH should be modified with high attitude range engine + Longer range Antitank missile .
India need to withdraw sanction against Denel of south africa/ Singapore tech / Israel defense industries with warning . we need to punish the culprits not india . Govt need to blacklist the indian high official's involved in scandal . And return of unspent money should not be allowed , need to take solid action against to stop this laziness .
Our ALH should be modified with high attitude range engine + Longer range Antitank missile .
India need to withdraw sanction against Denel of south africa/ Singapore tech / Israel defense industries with warning . we need to punish the culprits not india . Govt need to blacklist the indian high official's involved in scandal . And return of unspent money should not be allowed , need to take solid action against to stop this laziness .
Cheetal are performing! The Army is buying them now after the Air Force has proved them on the Glacier!!!!!!
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