NEW DELHI: With the continuing growth in the country’s military aviation industry, the defence ministry is now examining a proposal to set up a National Aerospace Testing Establishment (NATE) as a specialized umbrella body for testing and evaluating all kinds of aircraft, helicopters, drones and airborne weapons.
The proposed NATE will ensure an “integrated and synergistic approach” among the armed forces, which have their own flight-testing establishments, as well as DRDO and defence PSUs like Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), among others.
“Such a body will bring all disparate agencies under one umbrella and cut down the time-consuming process of first ground and then airborne testing of aircraft, which often delays projects. It will enhance efficiency,” a source said.
NATE will also be “a single-window body” for engaging with the private sector from the design and development phase to the final product certification, which is likely to shorten the long prototype development time-cycles.
“If there is a one-stop shop, with all flight-testing and evaluation under it, private companies, MSMEs and start-ups will not have to run around. It will be cost-effective for them,” another source said.
“NATE will also be able to help them in pre-design assessments based on qualitative requirements laid down by the armed forces and undertake feasibility studies,” he added.
The IAF, which has the premier Aircraft and Systems Testing Establishment (ASTE) and Air Force Test Pilots School (AFTPS) in Bengaluru, has spearheaded the NATE proposal submitted to the MoD’s department of military affairs, headed by chief of defence staff General Anil Chauhan. The CDS, incidentally, had visited ASTE-AFTPS in Bengaluru in May this year.
With a similar flight-testing structure in countries like the UK and France, it is felt that the setting up of NATE will lead to better utilisation of existing resources and speed up the typically long development cycles involved in the aviation industry.
With flight-testing being an extremely specialized field and a resource-intensive process, India requires an integrated approach with dedicated investment in terms of modern testing equipment, test facilities and human resources, the sources said.
NATE will also be a repository of all testing data and aviation-related software on aircraft, helicopters, drones and weapons like surface-to-air and air-to-air missiles. Equipping modified Sukhoi-30MKI fighters with the BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles, for instance, required extensive flight-testing before they could be operationally deployed.
