Cobras, termites and a shipping magnate

In December 1940 workers in Bangalore began clearing scrubland east of the cantonment for an aerodrome. They had to deal with hundreds of termite nests and cobras first. The man behind the project was Walchand Hirachand, an industrialist who had already founded India’s first modern shipping line and would go on to build its first shipyard and first car factory. He had found an American partner, William Pawley, won permission from the British War Cabinet, and persuaded the princely state of Mysore to put up money and 700 of the site’s 2,100 acres. Hindustan Aircraft Limited was established on 23 December 1940. Within months its first aircraft, a Harlow PC-5A trainer, took off, and licence production of the Curtiss Hawk and Vultee Vengeance followed.

An American repair shop in Mysore

The war soon took the factory away from its founders. After Japan entered the conflict the Government of India took over HAL in April 1942, and that same month Japanese bombers hit Pawley’s other aircraft factory at Loiwing on the Chinese–Burmese border, sending its equipment to Bangalore. From September 1943 the United States Army Air Forces ran the plant as a repair and overhaul base. Dakotas, Mitchells and Liberators passed through, Catalinas were test-flown off Bellandur Lake, and the flags of Britain, the United States and Mysore flew at the gate. India took the factory back in December 1945. Its first home-grown design, the HT-2 trainer, flew on 5 August 1951 and replaced the Tiger Moth; 172 were built.

The designer of the Fw 190 comes to Bangalore

India’s first jet fighter was designed by a German. Kurt Tank had led Focke-Wulf’s design office from 1931 to 1945 and created the Fw 190; after the war he had worked in Argentina under the name Pedro Matthies. In 1956 HAL began work on a supersonic fighter under his leadership, and the HF-24 Marut flew in 1961. It never got the engine it was designed around. Fitted with the same un-reheated Orpheus turbojets as the Gnats HAL was building under licence, it could barely reach Mach 1, and after India’s 1974 nuclear test even spares grew scarce. Only 147 were built. Yet in December 1971 Maruts and Hunters broke up a Pakistani armoured thrust at the Battle of Longewala, flying more than 300 sorties in two weeks.

Licences by the hundred

For most of its life HAL has been India’s licence-builder in chief. Hindustan Aircraft became Hindustan Aeronautics on 1 October 1964, when it merged with the Kanpur depot building the HS 748 and the new organisation set up to build the MiG-21, with factories at Nashik, Koraput and Hyderabad. India built 840 MiG-21s, the largest production outside the Soviet Union, and the type served until 26 September 2025. HAL also built Gnats and turned them into the Ajeet, then MiG-27s, Jaguars, Dornier 228s, Hawks and, from the 2000s, 222 Sukhoi Su-30MKIs assembled at Nashik. The Kiran jet trainer, first flown in 1964, trained generations of Indian pilots; 190 were built.

Helicopters for the roof of the world

Helicopters became HAL’s second identity. It licence-built the French Alouette III and Lama as the Chetak and Cheetah, then designed its own. The Dhruv Advanced Light Helicopter first flew on 20 August 1992 and more than 400 had been built by January 2024, though the fleet has been grounded several times after crashes, including in 2005 over tail-rotor vibration. The Kargil War of 1999 showed India needed an attack helicopter that could fight at extreme altitude; the answer was the Prachand Light Combat Helicopter, first flown on 29 March 2010 and inducted in October 2022. In 2025 HAL signed a contract worth 62,777 crore rupees for 156 more. In February 2023 a new helicopter factory at Tumakuru, described as India’s largest, was opened.

Tejas: thirty years in the making

The Tejas light fighter is the programme that defines modern HAL. Designed by the Aeronautical Development Agency with HAL as manufacturer, it first flew on 4 January 2001 and entered service on 17 January 2015 — and the last aircraft of its first two orders, placed in 2006 and 2010, were delivered only in September 2026. India’s own Kaveri engine never arrived, so the Tejas flies on American GE F404s, and slow engine deliveries have held back the improved Mk 1A, of which 180 have been ordered or cleared for purchase. On 21 November 2025 an Indian Air Force Tejas crashed during a display at the Dubai Airshow, killing its pilot. A larger Tejas Mk 2 and the stealthy AMCA are in development.

A Maharatna with a full order book

HAL today is one of the largest aerospace companies in Asia: 11 research centres and 21 manufacturing divisions, about 24,500 employees, and its own airport in Bengaluru, which was the city’s only airport until 2008. In October 2024 the government granted it Maharatna status, giving it more financial autonomy. For the 2024–25 year it reported revenue from operations of about 30,400 crore rupees and an order book of 184,000 crore rupees. It also builds rocket stages for ISRO, which in 2025 transferred the entire Small Satellite Launch Vehicle to HAL, and parts for Airbus, Boeing and Safran’s LEAP engine.

Factories

• Bangalore complex and HAL Airport · Bengaluru, Karnataka — Original 1940 site; Tejas, Dhruv and Prachand lines; HAL Airport was the city’s only airport until 2008
• Nashik division · Ozar, Nashik, Maharashtra — MiG-21 and Su-30MKI final assembly; third Tejas line from 2024
• Koraput division · Koraput, Odisha — Engines, including AL-31FP for the Su-30MKI
• Transport Aircraft Division · Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh — Built the HS 748; builds the Dornier 228
• Helicopter factory · Tumakuru, Karnataka — Opened February 2023; Light Utility Helicopter and Prachand lines

People

• Walchand Hirachand · founder — Industrialist who also founded India’s first modern shipyard and car factory
• William Pawley · American co-founder — Also ran the Loiwing aircraft factory bombed by Japan in 1942
• Kurt Tank · designer of the HF-24 Marut — Former Focke-Wulf chief designer, creator of the Fw 190
• D. K. Sunil · chairman and managing director

Records and firsts

• India’s first aircraft factory, 1940
• First Indian-developed jet fighter: HF-24 Marut, 1961
• Largest MiG-21 production outside the Soviet Union: 840 aircraft
• First complete transfer of an ISRO rocket’s technology to a single company: SSLV, 2025