OneIndia Special: Tejas ready to spit fire during Iron Fist
Bengaluru, Feb 26: Within a month after scripting history in Bahrain with its maiden flying display outside Indian skies, the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas is ready for the next mission.
Sources confirm to OneIndia on Thursday that two Tejas variants are likely to be part of the upcoming Iron Fist, set to begin on March 18.
A total of three Tejas variants will be made ‘hot-ready' for Iron Fist, with one being on the stand-by mode.
In an interview to OneIndia, during the IAF's 83rd anniversary celebrations in 2015, a top Aeronautical Development Agency official had said that Tejas would be demonstrating the weapon firing skills during Iron Fist-2016.
"Tejas will be demonstrating the BVR (Beyond Visual Range) missile launching and stick bombing capabilities with tandem bomb carrier in swing role," the official had said.
Interestingly, Tejas had recently demonstrated firing the Beyond Visual Range Air-to-Air Missile Derby at Jamnagar. It is expected to fire the Close Combat Missile Python-5 soon.
Iron Fist is IAF's largest fire power demonstration event with the network-centric warfare capabilities being exhibited to fullest. It is scheduled to begin at the Chandan Field Firing Range in Jaisalmer from March 18.
The IAF had demonstrated its day-dusk-night operational capabilities during Iron Fist-2013. Two variants of Tejas had participated during the 2013 show held in the month of February.
Over 200 aircraft demonstrated their capabilities spread across five days in 2013.
The President, the PM and a host of other top officials are expected to witness Iron Fist-2016.
Iron Fist 2013 promo
Meanwhile,
Hindustan
Aeronautics
Ltd
(HAL)
Airport
witnessed
a
significant
event
on
Wednesday,
February
24,
with
the
Limited
Series
Production
(LSP-3)
variant
of
Tejas
flying
with
a
new
quartz
radome
from
Cobham,
UK.
The
flight
was
piloted
by
Group
Capt
Rangachari
and
the
new
radome
is
expected
to
increase
the
radar
range
to
80
km
and
beyond.
With Iron Fist-2016 round the corner, it's action time for HAL's Tejas Division in Bengaluru.
Year 2016 has been a busy year for the Tejas Division with Bahrain air show, weapon trials at Jamnagar and now Iron Fist.
An IAF official says that the Tejas team has been asked to report at Jaisalmer on March 2.
"The HAL detachments will be moving to Jamnagar first and then to Jaisalmer. There is no bigger and better coordinated event for IAF. Not even the air show in Bengaluru (Aero India)," says the IAF official.
OneIndia News