BOEING HAS awarded a research and development (R&D) contract worth $130,000 to India's National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL), under which it will investigate aircraft damage-tolerance.
Bangalore-based NAL says, that the contract, which follows a preliminary proposal, which it submitted to Boeing in 1994, is the first to be awarded to an Indian aerospace research laboratory, by a major aircraft manufacturer.
Boeing is believed to be considering, awarding a further 12 R&D contracts to NAL, which is actively seeking further work from aircraft manufacturers worldwide.
NAL has extensive research equipment at its disposal, including an aerospace establishment set up by the Indian Space Research Organisation. There is also a scientific computing division specialising in computational fluid dynamics, computerised flight-control systems and structural analysis.
Recent projects have included the development of a system for reading data held by digital flight-data recorders used on Airbus A320s. NAL has also performed incident-analysis tasks using flight data.
It is also holding discussions with industrial company Reliance over the funding of development of the M-102 Saras twin-turboprop, a joint project between NAL and Russia's Myasishchev.
NAL's R&D turnover in 1994 was around $23 million.
Source: Flight International
