LCA Tejas completes successful maiden flight

BANGALORE - The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) on Saturday conducted a successful maiden flight test of the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), “Tejas” Limited Series Production (LSP)-3 aircraft.

Wing Commander G Thomas, of the National Flight Test Centre (NFTC) at the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA), flew the test aircraft.

According to the DRDO, the flight took off from the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) Airport in Bangalore, and all the objectives of the flight were met within the duration of 52 minutes.

The LSP 3 aircraft is the ninth test vehicle to join the flight line to undertake development flight trials of the Light Combat Aircraft Tejas.

The Tejas is expected to get operational clearance for induction in the Indian Air Force (IAF) by December.

The DRDO said that the successful, copybook maiden test flight of LSP-3 is significant on many counts.

The LSP-3 is a quantum jump in terms of the equipment fit on the aircraft. It is almost the final configuration including the new air-data computers, Multi Mode Radar, (MMR) new communication and navigation equipment and radar-warning receiver.

The remaining effort is mostly the flight-testing and demonstration of sensors and weapon performance, DRDO said.

As per procedure the first flight was accompanied by a chase aircraft which was a Tejas Trainer flown by Group Captain RR Tyagi, the Chief Test Pilot and Wing Commander (Retd) P K Raveendran, the Group Director (Flight Test).

The Test Director, Wing Commander S Toffeen, conducted the test flight from the Telemetry station, under the supervision of Air Commodore Rohit Varma, the Project Director (Flight Test).

With this flight the total number of test flights accumulated across nine test vehicles of the Tejas programme has reached one thousand three hundred and fifty and has logged about 800 hrs of flight.

On the successful flight of the LSP-3 Director - ADA, P S Subramanyam complimented all those who worked with the project.

“This is the culmination of the efforts of the Tejas Team comprising of members from HAL, IAF, CEMILAC, DG-AQA, DRDO labs, PSUs, coordinated by ADA,” Subramanyam said. (ANI)