Skip to content
The Aviation Hub

Manufacturer database

Manufacturer search

Look up any aircraft manufacturer in the world. How long they have been building, where they build it, what they are known for, and everything we have published about them.

Try: Airbus Boeing Embraer De Havilland

Track it yourself

How many Hindustan Aeronautics Limited types have you logged?

Spotter files every sighting by type and manufacturer on your own PC, so you can see which airframes you have caught and which are still missing. One payment of £4.99, no subscription.

See Spotter

Hindustan Aeronautics Limited

and still building

86 Years in business
Founded
22 December 1940, (as Hindustan Aircraft), 1964, (Hindustan Aeronautics)
Founder
Walchand Hirachand
Headquarters
Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
Parent company
Not recorded
Employees
24,457
Products
Transport aircraft, Fighter aircraft, Trainer aircraft, Helicopters

About the manufacturer

Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) is an Indian public sector aerospace and defence company. Headquartered in Bengaluru, it is involved in the designing, manufacturing and overhaul of combat aircraft, helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles, jet and turbine engines, avionics, and other hardware. HAL operates 11 dedicated research and development centres and 21 manufacturing divisions distributed across four production units. The company is majority-owned by the Indian government, and managed by a board of directors appointed by the Indian president through the Ministry of Defence. Established on 23 December 1940 by Walchand Hirachand as Hindustan Aircraft Limited, the company is one of the oldest and largest aerospace and defence manufacturers in the world. The company began manufacturing aircraft in 1942 with licensed production of Harlow PC-5, Curtiss P-36 Hawk, and Vultee A-31 Vengeance for the Indian Air Force. The company started manufacturing jet engines in 1957 with the licensed production of Bristol Siddeley Orpheus engines. It was established as Hindustan Aeronautics Limited on 1 October 1964. The HF-24 Marut, a fighter-bomber manufactured by HAL in the late 1960s, was the first indigenous combat aircraft built in India. Since the 1980s, HAL has been…

This summary is adapted from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence. Build totals and largest customer are our own figures, shown with a source where we hold one.