IMES NATIONJ ___________

Tejas movescloser to final

clearanceTIMES NEws Nt~rwoRK

Bangalore: Air Commodore(retd) KA Muthanna on Tuesday successfully took to skiesthe series production (SP)standard Light Combat Air~craft Tejas on its •ma~1denflight, taking the aircraft closer to final clearance andinduction k~ the IndianAir Force.

The series production wasfinaliséd last September andreceived the sQcond Initial operational clearance (100-fl) in ~Decembei~ It now awaits thç fl-nal, operational clearalice(F0C)~ The IAE which hasbeen extremely critical of theproject; had wanted an 100-11because the aircraftwas found“unworthy” for the forces af•ter the.first 100 in January2012. “The 10.0-11 happened inDecember after a series of is-sues were sorted out,” a well-.placed source said.

The cost Of one single SPstand~ard LGA ãould. toucháboutRs 160 crore.

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DECCANIIERALD ~J Fiday, Qct~jy~r 3. 2O1~i

LCA maiden flight~ Flindustan Aeronautics

Limited’s (HAL) firstLight Combat Aircraft(LCA) Tejas built to seriesproduction standard successfully completed itsmaiden flight on Tuesday.According to a press release, the flight was pilotedby Chief Test Pilot Air Commodore K A Muthana(Retd). Dr R K Tyagi,Chairman, HAL, has congratulated HAL engineers,technicians and other staffinvolved in the project.

BANGALORE

THE HINDU • THURSDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2014 ST E 5

Special Correspondent

BANGALORE: The first TejasLight Combat Aircraft fromthe batch of 20 ‘series production’ or full-fledgedfighters flew for about 25minutes on Tuesday.

R.K. Tyagi, Chairman ofLCA’s production agencyHindustan Aeronautics Ltd.,said, “The aircraft is nowready for lAP operations.”

However, for inductioninto the Air Force, LCA muststill pass the final operational clearance (FOC), whichhas slipped a few months into 2015.

The rest of the series production (SP) aircraft are being built at HAL’sproduction line here.

PS. Subrahmanyam, Director of Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA)and also programme director of DRDO’s combat aircraft programme, said the

ffight signifies the maturitylevel achieved by the product which was now independent of designers.

The flight of ‘SP1’ was piloted by HAL’s Chief TestPilot Air Commodore K.A.Muthanna (retired’). Offi

,cials of the LCA’s user agency lAP, n.inufacturer HAL,and developers DRDO andADA witnessed the event.

Within nine monthsSP1, Dr. Tyagi said, was

achieve~i within ninemonths of receiving the penultimate flight worthinesscertification, called bC(initial operational clearance) in December 2013.HAL received the buildstandard documents a yearback.

Mr. Subrahmanyam toldThe Hindu, “The maidenflight of the first LCA SP1was perfect; all systemsworked well. In fact, in the

past couple of weeks that wehave been testing it, it hasmet expectations at all preflight stages and the flightitself.”

IOC standardsHAL is producing the SP

or full-fledged productionbatch of20 LCAs, planned tocome out at the rate of atleast eight a year initially.The IAF’s initial requirement is put at around 200LCAs. The SP lot is built toIOC standards. About theFOC, Mr. Subrahmanyamsaid the LCA was even now acomplete product and wouldbe constantly fine-tuned.

HAL said it faced manytechnological challengeswhile making the LCA. Theyinclude sanctions on importof carbonflbre, establishingthe entire tooling and manufacturing capability basedon in-hoqse design of tooling and test equipment; and

RIE PHOTO

• The Ught Combat Aircraftis now ready for IAFoperations: HAL ChairmanRiC. Tyagi• For induction into the AirForce, ICA must still pass thefinal operational clearancea HAL is producing thefull-fledged productionbatch of 20 ICAsa It is planned to come outat the rate of at least eight ayear initiallya The IAF’s initialrequirement is put ataround 200 LCAs

adoption of world-classmanufacturing standards.

~1

LCA production version makes first flightV.’

INDIA, BANGALORE TIMES NATION

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