Air Chief Marshal RKS Bhadauria flew the HTT 40, designed and developed by HAL on Thursday. He assessed the flying characteristics including the stall and spin during the sortie.
The aircraft was launched at 1:20 pm and remained airborne for an hour. The CAS was accompanied by HAL’s Chief Test Pilot (FW), Gp Capt (Retd) KK Venugopal.
Bhadauria became the first serving Air Chief to fly in an aircraft in a prototype stage developed by HAL.
He was satisfied with the performance of the aircraft. He said: "The whole project needs to be completed for certification and HAL must target setting of modern manufacturing facilities with higher production rate from the beginning."
Mr. VM Chamola, CMD, HAL thanked the Air Chief’s support and also congratulated the team HTT 40.
Mr. Arup Chatterjee, Director (Engg. R&D) said: "The Air Chief’s support enables the indigenous capabilities of the defense organizations like HAL to rise to the occasion and meet the desired metrics in quality, cost, and timelines."
Mr. Shekhar Shrivastava, CEO(BC) stated that details for the production facilities required for producing HTT 40 in desired numbers have concurrently been worked out and HAL’s production will match the requirements of the IAF.
The HTT 40 has completed all major test points and meets the Preliminary Staff Qualitative Requirements (PSQR) issued by Air Headquarters for the BTA program. HTT-40 has successfully completed stalls, engine relights, inverted flying, acrobatic flying, and systems testing. The Basic Operational clearance and user evaluation trial readiness is expected soon. The design team at HAL is motivated by the Air Chief’s sortie.
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