During IDEF, Kotil met with press members and answered
some of their questions on the company’s product portfolio. He was speaking
about the indigenous helicopter programmes. As Kotil noted,
the T629 hybrid helicopter programme has a purpose. The
helicopter was presented back in February 2021. It was widely
believed that the T629 helicopter would be unmanned or electric.
Kotil underlined that T629 would be a transition helicopter from T129 to
T929. The systems will be tested on T629 as well. Kotil said, “The electric
helicopter will be a testbed. The batteries are not strong enough to hover the
helicopter. They might be in future, but not today. As a result, flying was not an option. We
wanted to test the dynamics of T629. We are focusing on the aerodynamics of the
air platform. We want to finish the version with the crew first. As I said,
batteries do not provide enough power to lift the system in the air.
