Banglaore, June 2 (IANS) India’s indigenously developed light combat aircraft Tejas inched a step closer towards its induction in the Indian Air Force (IAF) when the fourth production version of the jet successfully completed its maiden flight here Wednesday.
The test flight of the supersonic fly-by-wire fourth-generation fighter was a major breakthrough as for the first time, Tejas flew in the configuration that will be finally delivered to the IAF, said an official of the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL).
The aircraft has been jointly designed by the Aeronautics Development Agency (ADA) and HAL, which is the prime industrial contractor.
‘The Tejas team is now heading to central India to carry out hot weather trials. The aircraft will soon be flown by operational pilots of the defence services,’ ADA Programme Director P.S. Subramanyam said.
The aircraft took off at 11.10 a.m. and landed 40 minutes later at the HAL Bangalore airport.
The test pilot, Group Captain Suneet Krishna, flew the aircraft to an attitude of 11 km and went supersonic, touching 1.1 Mach, a notch faster than the speed of sound.
Test director Group Captain D. Chakravorty guided Krishan from the telemetry facility of the National Flight Test Centre (NFTC).
A chase aircraft was flown by the chief test pilot of NFTC, Group Captain R.R Tyagi with Wing Commander Prabhu. It is a standard operating procedure to have another aircraft accompany a fighter under test.
Air Commodore Rohit Varma, the project director at NFTC, supervised the test flight.
The aircraft that flew Wednesday was designated LSP-4 (limited series production-4). The first, second and third LSP jets flew in April, 2007; June 2008 and April 2010.
The Tejas is expected to cost Rs.150 crore per aircraft. The IAF has ordered 20 jets, which will be delivered by 2013. A repeat order for a similar number of aircraft is likely.
