Defence Minister Rajnath Singh during the signing of a contract between the Ministry of Defence and HAL in Delhi on Tuesday. PTI
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 7

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) today signed contracts with Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) and Larsen & Toubro Ltd (L&T) for the procurement of 70 HTT-40 basic trainer aircraft and three cadet training ships, respectively.

The contracts were signed in the presence of Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Defence Secretary Giridhar Aramane along with other senior civil and military officials of the MoD and representatives of HAL and L&T.

The Cabinet had, on March 1, approved the procurement of 70 HTT-40 trainer aircraft from HAL at a cost of over Rs 6,800 crore. The Cabinet had also cleared the signing of a contract with L&T for the acquisition of three cadet training ships worth more than Rs 3,100 crore.

The HTT-40 is a turbo prop aircraft possessing good low speed handling qualities and provides better training effectiveness. This fully aerobatic tandem seat turbo trainer has an air-conditioned cockpit, modern avionics, hot refuelling, running change over and zero-zero ejection seats.

The aircraft will meet the shortage of basic trainer aircraft of the IAF for training of newly inducted pilots. The HTT-40 contains 56 per cent indigenous components which will increase to over 60 per cent through indigenisation of major components and subsystems.