First established in Delhi in 1950 and moving to Bangalore within one year of its inception, NAL is a constituent of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). As a civil research institution, NAL has made many significant contributions to all Indian aerospace programmes and has often set the national agenda for these programmes. NAL's R&D abilities are also commercially viable. Within the last 24 months, it has secured contracts worth over Rs100 crore (US $25 million).
Over the last few years, NAL has earned more than 60 per cent of its budget through external resources. NAL also had the foresight to identify spin-off technologies from its aerospace research and has licensed and transferred 30 such technologies to 54 industries. In the 80s, it launched the prestigious Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) project.
NAL has led the shift in focus to civil aviation technologies creating two new light aircrafts. This laboratory has also undertaken about a dozen international projects for Boeing (USA), the Civil Aviation Authority (UK), IBM Corporation (USA), Hitachi, (Japan) and others.