Light Combat Helicopter, the next offering from HAL stables

Bangalore, Aug 16 (UNI) Trials on Light Combat Helicopter (LCH) will commence next year and the first craft will be delivered to Indian Air Force in 2009, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) Chairman Ashok K Baweja said today.

Talking to newspersons here, he said the LCH, weighing 5.8 tonnes, would be a very agile fighting machine and carry the same weapons as Dhruv (Advanced Light Helicopter) whose weaponised version took to the skies today.

Stating that development of LCH had already begun, Mr Baweja said HAL was setting up a dedicated helicopter training school in the city in joint venture with CAE of Canada. ''The stimulator school will be set up on a turn-key basis at a project cost of 55 million US Dollars and this school will be operational in September next year,'' he said.

UNI