Light Combat Aircraft Tejas: It’s a big day for public sector aircraft manufacturer Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) as the naval version of Light Combat Aircraft Tejas completed launch and recovery phase for aircraft carrier service in a single sortie on Sunday.
Second prototype of LCA Naval version was launched off from the ski jump at around 4.20 PM from shore based test facility of INS Hansa located in west coast in Goa, and it successfully landed with the help of arrested wires after a 10 minute flight.
This is a major step in the direction of LCA’s deployment on aircraft carrier in future.
Although, the naval version of Tejas has already cleared these two phases earlier but the take-off and landing were never done in a single sortie.
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“This is the first occasion when the complete cycle of launch and recovery necessary for aircraft carrier operations was accomplished in a single sortie,” said the ministry of defence in a statement.
Being a pioneering technology acquisition and demonstration program for the unique Short Take-Off but Arrested Recovery (STOBAR) concept of aircraft operations, the LCA-Navy team had to conceptualise and experiment with complex software modes from a clean slate.
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All this had to be done while tentatively exploring and incrementally expanding the structural capabilities of the aircraft to withstand the stringent requirements of carrier operations.
Defence minister Rajnath Singh congratulated DRDO, Aircraft Development Agency (ADA), HAL and Indian Navy for the achievement.
G Satheesh Reddy, secretary, department of defence, R&D and chairman of DRDO, also congratulated scientists and engineers, industry participants for the major feat.
