Photos: Advanced Light Helicopter Dhruv

Since there’s a nice discussion that’s frothing up on the Naval ALH Dhruv — begun after Ajai Shukla’s fine chopper series on Broadsword — thought I’d post some photos of the ALH that I’ve taken over the months. I flew in an Army variant of the Dhruv in 2005, and it’s a beautiful machine. Would hate to see anything of the sort that Prasun K Sengupta has alluded to in his piece (scroll down a couple of posts) ruining the chopper’s fortunes, that seem to be looking up now, fortunately. The Dhruv’s been exported to three countries so far. The implications of that are magnificent — the forces of other countries using an Indian-designed (by and large) and Indian-built aircraft. Still a heady thought.

Good luck to HAL chairman Ashok K Baweja and his team in bagging those deals in Bolivia and Venezuela soon. I suppose Hugo Chavez’s presidentship disqualifies Bell Textron from the sweepstakes right there! Heh!

Photos ©Copyright Shiv Aroor / LiveFist

11 thoughts on “Photos: Advanced Light Helicopter Dhruv”

  1. some bastards in armed forces want india to buy equipment from foreign
    countries and pay our money to them

    1. why did we buy decommissioned sea king helicopters we could use new
    naval dhruvs

    2.there is nothing wrong with naval dhruv it can be equipped with european electronics.

    3. situation is like like ARJUN tank

    but some in navy want india to pay and buy from foreign countries

  2. can some one tell me that why

    mirage upgrade deal is costlier than
    mig 29 upgraded deal

    mirage upgrade deal=euro 1.5billiom

    mig29 upgrade deal=$ 1 billion

    mig 29 is two engine aircraft we r making 120 new rd 33 engines,new avionics in mig 29

    not sure about new engine in mirage

    we have more mig29s than mirages

    so why deal is costlier than mig29 upgrade deal

    if we buy 126 RAFALE it will cost us 10 to 13 billion dollars to upgrade them toooooo costly

    russians are still cost effective

  3. Shiv, you said you have flown in the army variant and its beautiful.can you please tell why it is beautiful?
    a) Smooth takeoffs,landings, ride
    and no Jarring noise and
    vibrations?
    b) pilots control on the m/c is
    good. what are the pilot’s
    have to say?
    c) state of the art avionics?
    c) ease of maintenace and
    availabilty of HAL service
    personnel?

  4. There appears to be a lot of curiosity on the Naval Dhruv – any Navy would like to have a ship borne multi-role helicopter to perform the following:(a)An anti-submarine mission(armed with light weight torpedoes and depth charges)with an endurance of atleast 90 min Time on Task for an anti Submarine search task with dunking sonar/sonobuoys.(b)An anti-ship mission with atleast two anti-ship missiles with a similar endurance and the ability to detect targets commensurate with the weapon range.
    (c)Search and Rescue with integral sensors and rescue equipment.(d)Electronic Surveillance and Counter Measures(e)Long Range Communication and Data Link Relay
    (f)The suitability to carry and land/recover Special Forces

    If someone can attempt to answer the queries about the Naval Dhruv from this perspective,much of the curiosity could be satiated!

  5. Yep, that’s the Thai flag.
    I have been living in Thailand for the past several years, but never heard about Dhruv being in Thailand. It would have been one of the proud moments for us Indians in Thailand.

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