Rafale fighter parts too being made at Nagpur

Nagpur: Dassault Reliance Aerostructure Limited (DRAL) — the joint venture between France’s Dassault Aviation and Reliance Aerostructure Limited (RAL) — has started manufacturing components for Rafale fighter planes at its unit in Mihan-SEZ.
RAL has been allotted 105 acres in Mihan-, being developed by Maharashtra Airport Development Company (MADC), a state government agency for setting up an aerospace park.DRAL, which in turn has been allotted land by RAL in its campus, was initially making spares for Falcon 2000, the business jet made by Dassault.
This is part of the offset obligation arising out of the purchase of 36 Rafale aircraft by the Indian Air Force (IAF).
Before this announcement, the plant was known to be limiting its operations to making spares for Falcon, with the aim of eventually assembling the entire Falcon 2000 from the Nagpur unit by 2022. Even in public forum like meetings hosted by industries associations here, it was maintained that the Nagpur unit has been basically designed to make Falcon 2000 and not Rafale.
However, officials related to the project said in a later development the components for Rafale are also being made here, with plans to continue the production at a higher scale. The company had also put on display three engine doors manufactured at the DRAL facility in Nagpur during the Defence Expo held at Lucknow last week.
A press release issued by Dassault Aviation before the Defence Expo said, “In complement of the fighter aircraft expertise, a space dedicated to the Make In India achievements of Dassault Aviation, will display three major pieces of Rafale engine doors manufactured in the Dassault Reliance Aerospace Ltd (DRAL) 15,000 square meters facility in Nagpur.”
Sources said the spares will be mainly for the other Rafale already in the market. As far as the Indian deal for 36 planes is concerned, these will be delivered in fly away condition to the Indian Air Force (IAF), said an official privy to the developments in the company.
DRAL will be getting orders from Dassault Aviation, which would be billed as exports from Mihan-SEZ.
It is learnt that the first full-fledged shed at DRAL’s unit here has already become operational. There are plans to build two more as work on making spares for Falcon 2000 and also assembling an entire aircraft by 2020 will continue.
DRAL had initially started with making nose-cones for the Falcon aircraft, and then graduated to other spares for the plane.
Apart from DRAL, France’s Thales Group has also been allotted land in RAL’s Dhirubhai Ambani Aerospace Park (DAAP), for a radar manufacturing unit.