Tejas nearing IOC clearance: DRDO

Bangalore, June 19 (UNI) Tejas, the indegenous advanced combat aircraft, designed and developed by the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) here, is undergoing development flight trials towards Initial Operational Clearance (IOC) at Arakkonam in Tamil Nadu, 215 km from here.

The flight trials of Tejas, which has a long runway at an elevation of about 80 meters above mean sea level, was proceeding satisfactorily and the aircraft was progressively completing the necessary test and evolution requirements to declare it for induction into the Services.

Tejas had already completed Full Scale Engineering Development Phase I, according to a release by Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) here today.

Since ambient environmental conditions had strong influence on the aircraft and systems performance, the aircraft needed to be subjected to a wide range of altitude and temperature conditions as part of the development flight testing, Sea level trials were one such importnat test, for which currently a detachment was operating at INS Rajali, Arakkonam since last week, the release added.

The flight trials at Arakkonam plans to exploit the prevailing hot and humid conditions close to sea level, to assess the aircraft and systems performance under such conditions. Simultaneously, Tejas would also achieve flight envelop expansion to lower altitudes.

The Indian Navy, which was a stakeholder in the programme having invested a third of development expenditure for their Naval varient, was giving full support to the flight test team.

A mobile telemetry system to monitor and control flight-test at INS Rajali had been set up by NFTC where a composite team of design, production, maintenance, certification and flight test personnel are working in a campaign mode.

The photo Vehicle-3 had been undergoing flight tests for a week.

Later, Prototype Vehicle 2, which had special design features to withstand hot ambient conditions, flown by Air Commodore RKS Bhadauria, Project Director (Flight Test) at the National Flight Test Center, ADA had joined the campaign at Arakkonam.

UNI