India-made trainer aircraft's inaugural flight on June 17

Bengaluru, June 16: The inaugural flight of India's indigenous basic trainer aircraft, Hindustan Turbo Trainer-40 (HTT-40), would be undertaken here on Thursday,June 16 and Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar would witness it.

The inaugural flight of HTT-40, designed and developed by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, is likely to take place at 09.15 AM tomorrow at the HAL Airport here. The sortie is expected to take place for about 25 to 30 minutes, HAL officials said.

Aimed at being used for the first stage training for all flying cadets of the three services, HTT-40 had made its maiden flight after much delay on May 31.

Officials said detailed design phase of HTT-40 was launched in August 2013 with HAL's internal funding and was completed in May 2015 and from there it has taken 12 months to fly the first prototype. Indian Air Force is expected to procure seventy HTT-40 aircraft.

HAL has said that the programme aims to achieve its operational clearance by 2018, and towards this the company will be manufacturing three prototypes and two static test specimens.

Designed to meet the current demands of the Air force, there is also a provision to include weapons for the trainer aircraft.

According to officials, the indigenous content on HTT-40 is close to 80 per cent with about 75 plus systems out of the total 90 on the aircraft sourced from local players and sister divisions of HAL. HTT-40 aircraft weighs about 2,800 kg and has Turbo Prop engine of 950 shp class.

PTI