Secretary Defence R&D and Chairman DRDO Dr G Satheesh Reddy made a formal declaration of Final Operational Clearance (FOC) of the Light Combat Aircraft Tejas MK I for Indian Air Force (IAF). The FOC certifies that the world’s lightest fighter plane is “ready for battle.”
About:
Mark I Tejas, the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) is an Indian single-seat, single-jet engine, multirole light fighter. The aircraft has a tail-less compound delta-wing configuration, which provides for high maneuverability.
LCA is the first Indian fighter aircraft after Marut of the 1960s: 147 HF-24 Marut fighter-bomber aircraft were built by HAL and operated by the IAF between 1967 and 1990.
Bodies involved: Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA), the autonomous society of DRDO is the design agency and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) as the manufacturer.
Timeline:
It came from the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) programme, which began in the 1980s to replace India's ageing MiG-21 fighters. In 2003, the LCA was officially named "Tejas", which means "Radiant" in Sanskrit.
Initial Operational Clearance (IOC) of the aircraft took place in the year 2013 and IOC standard Aircraft were inducted into IAF No. 45 Squadron, in 2016. The IAF Squadron has since flown over 1500 sorties successfully on the Aircraft.
The Tejas Mark 1 is in production for the Indian Air Force (IAF) and the naval version is undergoing flight tests for Indian Navy (IN).
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