Pilatus Aircraft has signed a 10-year agreement with Tata Aircraft Systems Ltd. (TASL) for assembly of PC-12 aerostructures at TASL’s facility in Hyderabad, India. Under the deal, TASL will deliver the first complete PC-12 NG structure in the second half of 2016. The project includes tooling, jigs and training of TASL’s personnel at Pilatus facilities in Switzerland.

TASL is replacing Poland-based PZL-Swidnik, a Pilatus supplier that has been producing PC-12 structures. “By the middle of 2016 the contract with PZL-Swidnik, on mutual agreement, will cease,” Pilatus CEO Markus Bucher told AIN. He is confident that TASL is up to the task, since the Tata subsidiary has set up a “number” of similar aerostructure programs for global OEMs over the past five years.

“The partnership is also important in the context of Pilatus’s offset obligation resulting from the sale of the PC-7 Mk II Training Aircraft System to the Indian Air Force,” Bucher said. In 2012, Pilatus sold 75 PC-7 Mk II turboprop trainers to India’s air force.