NAL : Pioneering Excellence for 50 years

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National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL), Bangalore is a constituent Institution under the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research of India. NAL is a high technology oriented institution concentrating on advanced topics in the aerospace and related disciplines. Originally started as National Aeronautical Laboratory, it was renamed National Aerospace Laboratories to reflect its major involvement in the Indian space programme, its multidisciplinary activities and global positioning.  It is India’s only civilian aerospace laboratory with a high level of competence and the expertise of its scientists is globally acknowledged.

NAL was established on 1 June 1959 with offices in Delhi and moved to Bangalore on 1 March 1960. The early years (1960-67) were spent in setting up wind tunnels across the Bellandur Lake, Bangalore; notably the 1.2m trisonic blowdown wind tunnel which continues its splendid run to this day.. Then followed a decade of remarkable consolidation, facility build-up and the creation of R&D divisions encompassing practically every facet of aeronautics: theoretical and experimental aerodynamics, structures, materials, propulsion, electronics and systems..Dr Nilakantan was NAL's first Director and, in many ways, its founding father. NAL's Wind Tunnel Centre was set up because of Nilakantan's vision, commitment and untiring efforts.

By the mid-1970's, NAL had become one of the major actors on the Indian aeronautical scene. It was recognised as one of CSIR's best-managed national laboratories undertaking over a hundred high science high technology R&D projects in aerospace. The factors driving NAL's R&D effort were the pursuit of excellence, national self-reliance in a strategic sector, proof of technology (largely through the pilot plant demonstration concept) and the creation of outstanding testing and servicing facilities.

LCAAfter a dull period in the 60's and 70's was the positivity in the early 1980's, and largely due to the personal initiative of NAL's leaders and well-wishers, the tide was beginning to turn. India's light combat aircraft (LCA) project was formally approved by the Government in 1983, and the coming of this project led to a quantum leap in NAL's R&D activity. India's space programme too attained a significant level of maturity during this decade. This, coupled with the demands and success of the missile development programme of India's DRDO, meant that NAL had its hands full. This was the decade when NAL graduated into a major national player in aerospace.

The 1990's has been a very busy decade for NAL with its continued involvement in national aerospace programmes and NAL's own initiative in the area of civil aviation. In tune with the times, NAL's priorities and role are changing. But the resolve to be one of the world's best R&D centres in aerospace, shared by each of NAL's five Directors so far: Dr P Nilakantan, Dr S R Valluri, Prof R Narasimha, Dr K N Raju, Dr T S Prahlad, Dr B R Pai and now Dr A R Upadhya is still firm and undiminished.

NAL is in its 50th Year of existence and over these years has made significant contributions to a large number of aerospace programmes like (civil and military) aircraft pragrammes, space programme, engine development programmes, defence and strategic programmes of the country and has also contributed vital industrial and societal outputs. NAL has many collaborative projects with reputed international agencies. NAL also develops special expertise in certain fields and has made value added contributions to the areas like aircraft fleet maintenance, life extension, flight safety etc.  NAL has also developed significant technologies related to the field and is an acknowledged centre of excellence in many fields including composite structures, high speed wind tunnel testing, aircraft fatigue and aerospace acoustics, failure analysis and accident investigation.

http://www.acig.org/artman/uploads/shar_cougar_taxi2.jpgNAL has successfully executed some innovative research projects in advanced topics of relevance like smart materials, parallel processing, advanced flow diagnostics, airport instrumentation etc.Its societal contributions include harnessing of solar and wind energy, streamlining vehicles for fuel economy and weather prediction systems. All these contributions have enabled NAL to consistently generate a substantial part of its budget through projects and be top the generator of external cash flow among CSIR laboratories

NAL is the harbinger of civil aviation design and development activities in India. NAL designed HANSA trainer aircraft is flying in different flying clubs in India and is all set to reach overseas market.  The light transport aircraft, SARAS, is undergoing flight testing and is designed to meet a critical need in the civil aviation segment. 

A 5-seater general aviation aircraft is under design and feasibility studies on a 50-70-90 seater regional transport aircraft are in an advanced stage. Additionally, NAL has some sophisticated test facilities which are the best in the country and comparable to those abroad.  1.2 m Trisonic Tunnel Complex, Full Scale Fatigue Facility, Acoustic Test Facility, Engineer-in-Loop Facility, Composite Structure Facilities, Advanced Turbomachinery and Combustion Laboratories, Failure Analysis Laboratory and Electromagnetic Laboratory are among these. All these are manned by specialized teams who operate the facilities, conduct experiments, analyse the data and provide value added inputs to programmes.