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India defence online, New Delhi – The state-owned Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) have achieved yet another significant milestone by launching the naval variant of the indigenous Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) NP1 in Bangalore yesterday.
The rolling out ceremony of the naval LCA was attended by the Defence Minister AK Antony and Navy Chief Admiral Nirmal Verma besides other senior officials at HAL facility in Bangalore.
The naval variant of LCA was put together at ADA and is presently being equipped for induction in the Indian Navy. The LCA will undergo a phase of systems integration tests leading to ground runs, taxi trials and flight trials.
Finally, it will be deployed on board the Indigenous Aircraft Carrier (IAC) by 2015.
The maiden flight of the two-seat LCA naval trainer NP-1, which was rolled out yesterday, will only be possible after extensive integration tests, ground runs and trials have been cleared.
As a result, the LCA NP1 will be taking its first flight by the end of this year. As for the LCA NP2 which is a single-seat naval fighter, it will roll out next year.
The Naval LCA will be equipped with a host of operational weapons and equipment including the Beyond Visual Range (BVR) missile, anti-ship missiles, conventional bombs, air defence guns, counter-counter measures and drop tanks.
The naval LCA is equipped with state-of-art technology and the General Electric GE-F-404-IN20 engine. It is designed for Ski-jump Take Off But Arrested Recovery (STOBAR) operations.
The naval variant of the LCA mainly requires undercarriage strengthening to make it capable of a ski-jump take-off and arrester-hook landing on an aircraft carrier.
Despite this landmark achievement of the rolling out of the naval LCA, the painful wait which the Indian Air Force (IAF) has endured for the “Tejas” LCA may become a cause for concern to the India Navy.
The “Tejas’ LCA for the IAF is yet to become operational even after two decades. With deadlines being repeatedly missed, IAF is likely to get its first fully-operational Tejas squadron of 20 fighters by 2014-15.
The claims made by HAL and ADA of timely execution and delivery of the LCA seem a bit hinky.
The naval LCA programme powered by foreign engines has already missed deadlines and overshot projected costs. Its entire “full-scale engineering development” or FSED, as sanctioned by the government in March 2003, was to be completed by March 2010 at a cost of $211 million.
It included the building of NP-1, NP-2, a structural test specimen and flight-testing towards operational clearance.
Indian Navy officials indicated that the Indian Navy is looking at a minimum of two squadrons (16-18 aircraft) of LCA. The Indian Navy needs the LCA Mark-I version by 2014-2015, with the Mark-II coming three-four years after the Mark-I has arrived.
Any delay in the naval LCA programme may prove detrimental to the Indian Navy’s plan to deploy two carrier battle groups (CBGs) by 2015 centering around Admiral Gorshkov or INS Vikramaditya which India will get from Russia in early 2013; and the 40,000-tonne indigenous aircraft carrier (IAC) scheduled for roll-out by 2014.
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