NASHIK: The first overhauled Sukhoi-30 aircraft will be handed over to the Indian Air Force by the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL), Nashik division, on Friday.

This will be the first time ever that a used Sukhoi will be returned to the field.

Defence minister Manohar Parrikar, chief of air staff Arup Raha and HAL chairman R K Tyagi will be present on the occasion. The handing over ceremony will take place at HAL Nashik division at Ozar at 10.30 am on Friday %and the actual handover %will be done between 11.45 am to 12.30 pm.

Managing director (MiG Complex) S Subrahmanyan of HAL Nashik division told TOI, "We are the first in the world to hand over an overhauled Su-30 to the Air Force after its full completion of 10 years and 1,500 hours of flight. Even Russia has not done it."

Subrahmanyan said repair and overhaul is done for aircraft completing 10 years or 1,500 flying hours and the Sukhoi had completed both. A complete aircraft check has to be done after this period. All aircrafts come back to the aircraft division after they have completed this period. "We got more than 750 aggregates. Now, the aircraft will fly for another 10 years or 1,500 hours before it returns for an overhaul," he said.

The division is well laid out on a sprawling complex of 1.48 crore sq m with a built-up area of 1.73 lakh sq m and is equipped with state-of-the-art plant, machinery, equipment and infrastructure. The work of upgrading MiG-29s is under way at Nashik, along with repair and overhaul of MiG-21 aircraft variants, MiG-27 aircraft and their aggregates and rotables.

The overhaul includes evaluation of the aircraft, technical state and their maintainability, evaluation of technical and maintainability of aggregates and systems, check up of package contents, aircraft acceptance by flight and test complex.

It includes aircraft visual inspection, engine start, fuel and oil discharge from fuel and oil systems; weighting, levelling and preservation of the aircraft, check up of aggregate and the logbooks of the airframe, engines and auxiliary power unit, disassembly of the aircraft, washing and flaw detection of the aggregates and components, flaw detection and overhaul of aggregates and components, flaw detection and repair of the airframe.

The Nashik plant has manufactured 150 Sukhois from 2008, which is one of the best aircrafts in the world. The MD had informed that the Nashik division was in the raw material phase and produces 73 raw material parts here. "Earlier, every item used to go abroad for repair. Now, every item can be repaired and overhauled here," he had said in an interview with TOI.