HAL – Dream to fly. Why vision is so important!

I haven’t updated my blog in quite some time. As Benjamin Franklin wisely said, “Write only when something is worth reading.” Recently, I took my kids to the HAL Heritage Centre and Aerospace Museum. Although the star attraction—the flight simulator—was closed, the experience was a treasure trove of aviation history, rekindling my interest in the early evolution of aircraft in India. It inspired me enough to write about it!

Being a World War II enthusiast, I was surprised to see some of HAL's early endeavors in building a fighter jet in the 1960s with the help of Kurt Tank—one of the original pioneers of jet design in the 1930s. I suspect this blog will be a lengthy one. So, if you have an interest in aerospace history and India’s fluctuating role in it, stay on to read.

From envisioning an aircraft manufacturing facility in the mid-1940s to developing the first jet in Asia during the 1950s and 1960s, HAL lost its way for the next 50 years, only to recover slightly post-2010s. At a high level, the loss of vision that the founders once had, coupled with a profound sense of inferiority and an inability to focus on continuous innovation, is the main reason for its confused standing today. The story mirrors that of India: initial promise, followed by decades in the wilderness, and a reluctant rise after a deep slumber.

The Beginnings – Walchand and Wodeyar

Walchand Hirachand, one of India’s maverick industrialists, sought to create Hindustan Aircraft Limited in 1939 and was in search of funds. Incidentally, the young Maharaja of Mysore, Jayachamarajendra Wodeyar, had a chance mid-air meeting with William Douglas Pawley (an American businessman and aircraft enthusiast who was en route to China at the start of World War II). During their conversation, the Maharaja recognized the strategic long-term importance of having core industries and decided to help establish the aircraft manufacturing plant in his state.

Walchand’s creative genius combined with Wodeyar’s financial backing resulted in the formation of HAL. Their vision was clear: to develop an aircraft manufacturing facility indigenously.

India was short on technical skill sets, so they took measures to bring in foreign talent. Dr. Ghatage was the sole Indian aircraft designer responsible for HAL planes such as HT-2, Pushpak, Kiran, and Krishak. 

Despite the socialist mindset of the early Indian government—nationalization of HAL and indifference from government officials—the involvement of visionary founders, Hirachand and the Wodeyars, managed to attract Kurt Tank to lead aircraft-building efforts.

Who is Kurt Tank?

Kurt Tank was one of the original aircraft pioneers, designing the Focke Wulf range of airplanes in the 1930s. His Focke Wulf Condor was the first plane to make a transatlantic journey as a passenger jet. It is unclear how he came to India to design an aircraft. There is very little literature about who negotiated his entry into HAL. Was it the Wodeyars? Or Nehru? Did he express interest in developing an aircraft in a third-world country (highly unlikely)? We don’t know. Secondary sources usually credit the government with success and everyone else with failure. However, early photos from the founders' era until the 1960s show active involvement of the Wodeyars and Hirachand families, with minimal political involvement in HAL's activities.

Kurt Tank entered the landscape in the early 1950s. He had to not only design the original aircraft jet but also build a modern industrial complex capable of developing and building one. Unlike his Indian employers, Tank understood the entire process of designing, building, testing, refining, and mass-producing aircraft from his time at Focke Wulf. His Fw-200 Condor, a four-engine commercial transport for Lufthansa, first flew in 1937. When WWII began, the Condor was modified into a highly successful maritime patrol bomber. Tank was also responsible for the Ta-154 Moskito, a high-performance, twin-engine, multi-role combat aircraft built entirely of wood. Production of the Ta-154 was canceled when the factory that produced the special glue required for the wooden airframe was bombed, cutting off the supply.

Despite the rudimentary nature of HAL’s facilities, work on the Mach 2 fighter—designated HF-24 and named Marut—proceeded at a relatively brisk pace. A full-scale wooden glider version of the HF-24 began aerodynamic flight trials, towed into the air by a Douglas DC-3, on April 1, 1959. Assembly of the first prototype commenced in April 1960. It was flown for the first time on June 17, 1961, by Wing Cmdr. Suranjan Das. A little more than a week later, it was demonstrated for the Minister of Defense, V.K. Krishna Menon. A structural test airframe was completed in November, and a second flying prototype took to the air in October 1962.

The performance of the Marut, however, did not meet HAL’s ambitious promises. Its projected performance depended on the availability of the Rolls-Royce Bristol Orpheus BOr-12, a British-designed afterburning turbojet engine. The Marut was intended to be powered by two of these engines, each delivering 8,170 pounds of thrust. However, the British government canceled its financial support for the development of the Orpheus BOr-12, and the Indian government was not prepared to cover the costs, leading to the project's termination.

Consequently, the Marut was fitted with non-afterburning Orpheus 703s, the engines HAL was currently building under license for its Gnat lightweight fighters. The Orpheus 703 produced only 4,850 pounds of thrust—44 percent less than the engine for which the Marut had been designed. As a result, the Marut was underpowered and unable to fulfill its performance potential.

Missing Vision: Socialist Culture of Embracing Mediocrity and Low Self-Esteem

In the early 1960s, Rolls-Royce asked the Indian government to fund the development of the Orpheus BOr-12 turbojet engine—a total of $1 million. Our socialist government flatly refused to spend this amount and instead chose to purchase fully built foreign planes rather than developing one in-house.

It’s worth noting that Rolls-Royce was building the engine based on needs from two countries—India (for Marut) and Egypt (for its fighter jet E-300). After Egypt faced significant setbacks during the 1967 war, they canceled their fighter jet program, leaving India as the sole customer.

What does $1 million translate to today? At a 6% inflation rate over 50 years (from the mid-1960s to the 2020s), it would be a 20X increase in value, equating to about $20 million. Considering the USD to INR drop from the 1960s to the 2020s (1 USD = 5 INR in the 1960s to 82 INR in the 2020s), it would still amount to approximately $150 million in today’s terms.

Losing Its Way Through the 1970s

Despite an underpowered engine, the Marut proved to be a highly maneuverable aircraft during the 1971 India-Pakistan war. No mid-air combat losses were reported during the conflict (out of the 145 aircraft in use).

Was it the lure of kickbacks that led to the closure of the Marut program? Or was it the inability of government bureaucrats to design products, which led to the eventual acquisition of Soviet MIG-21s in the late 1960s? Since then, India has spent tens of billions of dollars on jet purchases. I sometimes wonder where we went wrong.

Kurt Tank seems to have left HAL immediately after the closure of the Marut program in 1967. He offered to design the HF-73 in 1973, but the Indian government ignored him. Having grown accustomed to buying planes from the Soviet Union, our jet aircraft program appears to have been placed on the back burner.

It is a lesser-known fact that one of Kurt’s students at the Madras Institute of Technology was the missile man of India, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. As they say, when you have great teachers, you are bound to produce great students.

The inability to think big seems to have led to a decline in HAL’s capacity to design any new fighter jet until the 1980s, when the LCA (Light Combat Aircraft) program emerged. Jaguars, Mirages, Sukhois, and Rafales have been the primary focus since then.

Continuous Innovation: Overcoming Setbacks and Laboring On

No product is perfect. Everything is a labor of love and requires continuous innovation. We seem to be unwilling to invest in building core technologies and designs. They need continuous focus, not a start-stop approach.

Will we change? Hopefully, yes. Building aircraft is a costly endeavor. However, not building one is an even costlier proposition in the long term.

Being dependent on the West for our fighter needs is a losing proposition. Building technologies from the ground up within India should be our focus. We lack visionaries like Walchand and the Wodeyars who started HAL. As long as we do not encourage capitalists like Walchand and support them in their ventures to dream big, we are bound to repeat stories like HAL.

Vision seems to be lacking. Somehow we seemed to have lost our ability to take risks. Innovate. Fail. Make it better. 

I just felt that we could do better. I hope we stay on course. HAL - continue to dream to fly!

P.S.: I need to disclose that I have held a large position in HAL since Covid. Of course, my views are biased. I am a SEBI registered Investment Advisor and I also run a SEBI registered PMS, Dwaith.

Ciao till next time...Harsha