*7.4.5 Military airworthiness and certification in India*

The Indian military airworthiness certification process has been modeled after the earlier British system. The system is based on concurrent design and clearance leading to eventual certification. This approach was adopted since the certification authority, viz. the Chief Resident Engineer (CRE), and the inspection authority Chief Resident Inspector (CRI) were co-located with defence public sector Hindustan Aeronautics Limited who is responsible for design and development (D&D). D&D milestones are agreed between the design and certification authorities, and the design is reviewed for safety and airworthiness by a team of experts. At appropriate stages, test procedures are examined and approved, and tests are carried out. The test results are reviewed for acceptance, redesign or retest. The CRE and CRI organizations have been changed to CEMILAC and DGAQA; however, the inspection and design certification procedure have practically remained the same.

However, this process conceptually differs from those followed in the United States and Europe, where both D&D and manufacture are delegated to approved design/production organization. The Defence Project Managers (PM) monitor the project progress. At mutually accepted major milestones, reviews are carried out as per the agreed documentation of the contract. The government, through the certification provision, holds the authorized personnel within the firm responsible for the airworthiness certification of the aircraft. In contrast, in India, CEMILAC and DGAQA interact with the D&D team on a day-to-day basis and carry out spot checks to identify design/production deficiencies during the D&D stage [3, 4, 13, 29].

MOD Document DDPMAS 2002 (Procedures for Design Development of Military Aircraft and Airborne Stores) guidelines are as follows. DDPMAS 2002 volume 2 is used as a procedure for certification of airborne software. These documents also lay down airworthiness assurance procedures during manufacture, overhaul and upgrade of military aircraft. The military airworthiness functions are shown in **Figure 9**, and aircraft certification procedure is shown in the block diagram in **Figure 10**.
