4th LCA Takes Off

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India Defence Online, New Delhi — India is rapidly gaining momentum towards the realisation of its most anticipated project, the home-grown ‘Tejas’ supersonic aircraft, which is being developed for over two decades. The ‘Tejas’ aircraft is part of India’s Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) programme.

The limited series production ‘Tejas’ aircraft (LSP-4) took off for its first flight from the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) airport in Bangalore. Defence Ministry officials indicated that the aircraft, “an equipment standard needed for initial operational clearance”, took off and landed 40 minutes later.

The recent achievement is significant in the light of the fact that, for the first time, the LSP ‘Tejas’ aircraft has gone supersonic in its maiden flight. In addition, this was also the first time when the ‘Tejas’ aircraft has flown in the configuration that will be finally delivered to the Indian Air Force (IAF).

The ‘Tejas’ test flight was supervised by Air Commodore Rohit Varma who is the Project Director (flight test) at the National Flight Test Centre (NFTC) in Bangalore. Test pilot, Group Captain Suneet Krishna, flew the aircraft to an altitude of 11 kilometres and went supersonic, touching a speed of 1.1 Mach. Test director, Group Captain D Chakravorty, guided the pilot from the telemetry facility of NFTC.

As for the role of the ‘Tejas’ aircraft, it was elucidated that a fighter plane flies in supersonic speed when it has already accomplished its mission and is being chased by enemy aircrafts. For testing, there was a plane chasing the Tejas LSP-4 during its first test flight. The chase aircraft (Tejas LSP-3) was flown by chief test pilot of NFTC, Group Captain RR Tyagi with Wing Commander Prabhu as the test director. The flight was witnessed by a number of high-ranking officials from the Indian defence forces.

Senior scientists from the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA), National Aerospace Laboratory and Aeronautical Development Establishment were involved in the development and flight test planning for the newly integrated flight control software which was used by the test aircraft.

The State-owned Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) is planning to get the Initial Operational Clearance (IOC) for the ‘Tejas’ aircraft by 2011, the Final Operational Clearance by 2012 and to get the aircraft ready for induction into the IAF by early 2014.

Indian Defence and Strategic Intelligence

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