HAL Hindustan Ardhra Glider,Sailplane Indian Armed Forces

The Hindustan Ardhra was a sailplane designed in India for pilot training by the government’s Civil Aviation Department in the late 1970s as the ATS-1 Ardhra. It was a two-seat aircraft of conventional configuration and wooden construction. The Indian Air Force ordered fifty examples in the early 1980s to be produced by Hindustan Aeronautics and the type was approved for use for flying by cadets.

Indian Air Force is the primary operator of Hindustan Ardhra training Sailplane.

The Hindustan Ardhra is a Training Sailplane and it was manufactured by Civil Aviation Department of India(Ministry of Civil Aviation of Government of India is the nodal Ministry responsible for the formulation of national policies and programmes for development and regulation of Civil Aviation and for devising and implementing schemes for the orderly growth and expansion of civil air transport. Its functions also extend to overseeing airport facilities, air traffic services and carriage of passengers and goods by air),HAL (Hindustan) Aeronautics.It tooks its first light in 5 march 1979.

Hindustan Ardhra

Design

The ATS-1 Ardhra has a crew capacity of 2.It has length of 8.61 m,wingspan of 16.5 m and Height of 2.46 m.The Sailplane has a Airfoil of Wortmann FX-61-184.It flies with the maximum takeoff weight of 508 kg and it has empty weight of 328 kg.

Performance

Coming towards its performance,the sailplane has stall speed of 61 km/h and maximum speed of 201 km/h after which it can increase its speed.The maximum glide ratio is 26 and g limits is +5.3 -2.65.The Aircraft has rate of sink 0.78m/s.