Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) will provide Adour engine parts to Rolls-Royce for its international defence customer base under a new agreement in which the first order for the supply of spares for the Adour Global Supply chain has been placed.
R Madhavan, CMD, HAL, said that with over 30 years of experience supporting repair and maintenance services for the Adour engines in India, HAL has the capability and capacity to support a large defence customer base. The company expects further orders to follow from Rolls-Royce that will allow it to build the capability to serve the global market for the supply of spares and MRO of Adour engines.
The two companies had inked a Memorandum of Understanding at Aero India 2021 to establish an Adour engine Authorised Maintenance Centre at HAL.
Kishore Jayaraman, President, Rolls-Royce India and South Asia, said that the company’s partnership with HAL has grown from strength to strength over the last few decades and the latest agreement was a significant step towards strengthening the defence manufacturing ecosystem in India.
This is Rolls-Royce’s first defence supplies agreement in India, and it will use HAL’s existing capabilities for manufacturing and supporting the Adour engines for Indian customers over several decades, strengthening the global supply chain for Adour engines.
Rolls-Royce and HAL share a longstanding partnership, which began in 1956 with the license production of Orpheus turbojet engines, followed by the production of Adour Mk811 engines for Jaguar from 1981 and the Adour Mk871 engines for Hawk aircraft. Both engines share a high degree of commonality.
The Adour engine was developed by the joint venture between Rolls-Royce and Turbomeca (now Safran Aircraft Engines).