Indian Rotorcraft Limited (IRL) is a company specialising in the manufacture of

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which Lift (force), lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning Helicopter rotor, rotors. This allows the helicopter to VTOL, take off and land vertically, to hover (helicopter), hover, and ...

s within

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

for the global market. Established in 2010, it is operated as a

joint venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acce ...

between Indian conglomerate

Tata Sons Tata Sons Pvt. Ltd. is the holding company of the Tata Group, headquartered in Mumbai. It owns the bulk of shareholding in the Tata group of companies including their land holdings across India, tea estates and steel plants, and derives its reve ...

and

Anglo Anglo is a prefix indicating a relation to, or descent from England, English culture, the English people or the English language, such as in the term ''Anglosphere''. It is often used alone, somewhat loosely, to refer to people of British d ...

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

defense company

Leonardo S.p.A. Leonardo S.p.A., formerly Leonardo-Finmeccanica and originally Finmeccanica, is an Italian multinational company specialising in aerospace, defence and security. Headquartered in Rome, the company has 180 sites worldwide. It is the 12th largest ...

Ground was broken on a dedicated facility at

Rajiv Gandhi International Airport Rajiv Gandhi International Airport is an international airport that serves Hyderabad, the capital of the Indian state of Telangana. It is located in Shamshabad, about south of Hyderabad and it was opened on 23 March 2008 to replace Begumpet ...

Hyderabad Hyderabad is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part of Southern India. With an average altitude of , much ...

in March 2012; its completion has been delayed reportedly due to protracted rulings from overseeing Indian government agencies.

History

Indian Rotorcraft was founded upon a partnership agreement signed between Tata Sons and

helicopter manufacturer

AgustaWestland AgustaWestland was an Anglo-Italian helicopter design and manufacturing company, which was a wholly owned subsidiary of Finmeccanica (now known as Leonardo). It was formed in July 2000 as an Anglo-Italian multinational company, when Finmeccani ...

(a company which has since been integrated into

in 2016) during January 2010. At the time, India was viewed by helicopter manufacturers as one of the biggest potential growth markets. Speaking of the venture in 2012,

Ratan Tata Ratan Naval Tata (28 December 1937 9 October 2024) was an Indian industrialist and philanthropist. He served as the chairman of Tata Group and Tata Sons from 1991 to 2012 and he held the position of interim chairman from October 2016 to Feb ...

, chairman of Tata Sons, stated: "The project is integral to our plans in the aerospace sector and we look forward to an enduring and successful partnership with AgustaWestland." During March 2012, Indian Rotorcraft broke ground on a 40,000m2 new facility adjacent to

, India; once complete, this site, which includes a main assembly facility, flight hangar, offices and several helicopter landing pads, will accommodate the assembly, customisation and flight-testing of helicopters for the global market. The first helicopters to be manufactured by the joint venture is slated to be the

AgustaWestland AW119 The AgustaWestland AW119 Koala, produced by Leonardo since 2016, is an eight-seat utility helicopter powered by a single turboshaft engine produced for the civil market. Introduced as the Agusta A119 Koala prior to the Agusta-Westland merger, ...

Ke; other types, such as the

AgustaWestland AW101 The AgustaWestland AW101 is a medium-lift helicopter in military and civil use. First flown in 1987, it was developed by a joint venture between Westland Helicopters in the United Kingdom and Agusta in Italy in response to national requiremen ...

, are likely to follow in the future. Tata have mooted plan to manufacture up to 80 per cent of the

Sikorsky S-92 The Sikorsky S-92 is an American twin-engine medium-lift helicopter built by Sikorsky Aircraft for the civil and military helicopter markets. The S-92 was developed from the Sikorsky S-70 helicopter and has similar parts such as flight control ...

at the facility as well. In addition to whole rotorcraft, the joint venture shall also engage in the manufacture of components for various other military and commercial aircraft. Assembly activity, which is to reportedly have the initial capacity to complete a maximum of 30 helicopters per year, was at one point slated to commence during April 2014. During summer 2015, it was reported that further delays to starting assembly were likely as the

Foreign Investment Promotion Board The Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) was a national agency of Government of India, with the remit to consider and recommend foreign direct investment (FDI) which does not come under the automatic route. India attract net inward foreign ...

(FIPB), an Indian government agency, repeatedly deferred a pending decision on the proposal. During September 2015, after two years of deferment, the proposal was at last cleared by the FIPB, allowing work to proceed; at the time, an Indian Rotorcraft spokesperson was unwilling to commit to a final timeframe for production rollout. However, during May 2016, another pending ruling by the FIPB was deferred without any stated reason; allegedly, the FIPB is liaising with the Indian Ministry of Defence on the matter. The Indian government's apparent hesitancy on the issue has been alleged to be linked to the

2013 Indian helicopter bribery scandal Also referred to as the AgustaWestland VVIP chopper deal, the Indian helicopter bribery scandal by Congress led UPA Government refers to a multimillion-dollar corruption case in India, wherein money was paid to middlemen and Indian officials ...

References

{{reflist Aircraft manufacturers of India Manufacturing companies based in Hyderabad, India Leonardo S.p.A. Tata Sons