The joint venture between Thales of France and the Indian firm Samtel Display Systems aims to manufacture Helmet Mounted Sight Displays (HMDs) for the MiG-29K fighters that will operate from India’s future aircraft carriers. The project is called Top Sight–I.

The aim of the HMD is to project the information to fly the aircraft before the pilot’s eyes. It also enables the pilot to aim a weapon merely by looking towards the target and saving precious time in the event of a combat. As the pilot moves his head, a magnetic sensor following his helmet and customized software calculates where he looks and aims a missile in that direction.

According to Defence Ministry sources, Thales of France aims to build HMDs in India through its joint venture Samtel Thales Avionics near Delhi. In fact, Thales is looking at manufacturing its entire global requirement of HMDs in Samtel Thales Avionics and are willing to transfer proprietary HMD technologies worth millions of dollars to Samtel Thales Avionics in India.

However, the only bone of contention seems to be the defence offsets policy and its ambiguity. While Thales has clearly stated that it must get offset credits for the entire volume of production of the JV, India is only permitting the “banking” of offsets and not allowing the entire production of Samtel Thales Avionics eligible for offset credits.

Puneet Kaura, Executive Director, Samtel Display Systems, said that all displays produced in Samtel Thales Avionics are fully eligible for offsets under the Defence Procurement Policy of 2008. It is an Indian company and it value-adds more than 70 per cent to whatever is supplied from Thales of France. But if offset credit is given only for products that are fitted onto Indian weapons platforms, Thales would hesitate to transfer sensitive technologies to a JV in which it holds only 26 per cent.

Hence, Indian Defence Ministry must carefully analyze this situation since transfer of technology as well as a manufacturing unit in India for HMD can be substantially beneficial. Even the Indian Air Force would benefit since a support unit for the HMD will be close at hand in India.

As for Samtel Thales Avionics, it will be absorbing the knowledge of the system and aims to develop design capabilities in a couple of years. Samtel Thales Avionics will start with “Build to Print”, building HMDs according to blueprints provided by Thales.

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