Bangalore: India's own chopper, Dhruv crosses 1 lakh flying hours

India’s first indigenous chopper, Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH –Dhruv) achieved a new milestone of flying one lakh hours on Wednesday.

The landmark was been achieved in the early hours of Wednesday with the flying of helicopter IA3104 of 301 Army Aviation Sqn (Spl Ops).

“One lakh hours flown by the machine is an awesome feat to achieve. It is a dream machine for any pilot”, said Lt Col Kapil Agarwal, who completed the landmark flying hours.

India is the sixth nation in the world to have the capability to develop helicopters of this class.

Dhruv features
ALH-Dhruv is a multi-role, multi-mission new generation all-weather 5.5-tonne weight class helicopter, which can carry 10-16 people at heights of 10,000 feet. It is designed, developed, produced and maintained  by HAL.

It is in use with IAF, Indian Army, Indian Navy, Coast Guard, BSF and state governments since 2002.

More than 130 Dhruvs are serving the Indian defence forces. Twelve civil variant Dhruvs are also operated.

Ecuador, Mauritius, Nepal and Maldives have bought the chopper.

Dhruv was used during 2004 tsunami, Leh flash floods(2010), Sikkim earthquake(2011) and Uttarakhand floods.