New Delhi: IAF chief Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha will today take his maiden flight in India's indigenous light combat aircraft, Tejas, and review the development so far.
Marshal Raha will also inaugurate the LCA paint hangar in Bengaluru and visit the production line of the aircraft. The IAF has given an order of 120 Tejas, with 100 of them being an upgraded version.
He will fly a sortie in a Tejas trainer aircraft which is a two seater, defence sources said. He will also visit the hangar where the Mirage 2000 is being upgraded.
Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), manufacturer of Tejas, is likely to hand over the fourth aircraft to IAF by June end. The four aircraft will make up for the first squadron of IAF which will be used for training and familarisation.
Rather than waiting for LAC Mk II, IAF had decided to go in with an upgraded version of the existing Tejas with over 40 modifications.
IAF currently plans to acquire 120 Tejas aircraft, with 100 of these having major modifications. The force wants Active Electrically Scanned Array (AESA) Radar, Unified Electronic Warfare (EW) Suite, mid-air refueling capacity and beyond the vision range missiles.
As per the production plan, six aircraft will be made this year (2015-16) and HAL will subsequently scale it up to eight and 16 aircraft per year. Upgraded version of Tejas will cost between Rs 275 crore and Rs 300 crore.
IAF will get the first 20 Tejas Mark-I jets by 2018. With the annual production being stepped up to 16 jets from the existing 8, another 100 "improved" Tejas Mark-IA jets will follow by 2026 or so.
Tejas, with a limited reach of just about 400-km, will basically be used for air defence to take on incoming enemy fighters or close air-to-ground operations to support the Army. Strikes deep into enemy territory will have to be undertaken by Russian-origin Sukhoi-30MKIs or the Rafales.
Tejas, which was several years in the making, has now caught the attention of foreign buyers, with Sri Lanka and Egypt evincing interest in the fighter jet.
Sri Lanka had recently rejected Pakistan's JF-17 aircraft built with Chinese help, while Egypt had last year signed a contract for 24 French-made Rafale fighter jets. The two countries are interested in the current version of Tejas and not the upgraded one which will be rolled out later.
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