Indian Military Aviation News and Discussion

[Arun_S]

[url="http://www.deccanchronicle.com/national/finally-iaf-will-fly-%E2%80%98made-india%E2%80%99-fighter-194"]Finally, IAF will fly a ‘made in India’ fighter: Deccan Cronical[/url]

February 3rd, 2010

By Our Correspondent



Bengaluru, Feb. 2: The IAF, long ridiculed as one of the world’s biggest air forces that has never flown its own indigenous fighters [color="#9932cc"]{Aruns_S: What Gober !!. India has operationally fielded its own HF-24 before. This is what comes out of people who have reading/learning disorder, and those who only see/read TV and have never read books or used their brains to visit a museum}[/color], could be flying a squadron of Tejas Light Combat Aircraft by the end of the year.



The defence minister, Mr A.K. Anthony, declared on Tuesday that the indigenous aircraft, the world’s smallest multi-role fighter “will certainly get the Initial Operational Clearance (IOC) by the end of 2010”.



In January, the Cabinet Committee on Security allocated Rs 8,000 crore for production of the air force version of the LCA and for the development of the naval version and the trainer, clearly indicating that there was now no doubt at the highest decision-making levels about the success of the project.



Tejas — long criticised as being too late, too expensive – was first conceived some 27 years ago. It began as a technology demonstrator project in 1993 and was subsequently cleared for development as a multi-role fighter in 2001.



Nearly, all trials have been completed in some 1,290 flights.



Mr P. S. Subramanyam, the man spearheading the development of Tejas, said, [color="#4169e1"]“Only the Multi-Mode Radar needs to be flown on Tejas, and that we will do this month”[/color].



Mr Antony’s championship of the indigenous military technology has also seen DRDO notch up a Rs 4,000 crore IAF order to supply it six squadrons of Akash air defence missile systems, in addition to the two squadrons it already has and against stiff competition from the Israeli Spyder system.