Bangalore, January 10
India achieved a major milestone in military avionics today when the indigenously designed and developed Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas was given initial operational clearance in a function at the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited airport here paving the way for its induction into the Indian Air Force.

K Tamilmani, chief executive of CEMILAC (Centre for Military Airworthiness and Certification) handed over the clearance certificate to Defence Minister AK Antony, who passed it on to the IAF chief.

Addressing the gathering - consisting of HAL (Hindustan Aeronautics Limited) personnel, DRDO (Defence Research and Development Organisation) officials, representatives of industry and academia, who lent support to the project and mediapersons - Antony said a state-of-the-art indigenous combat aircraft would go a long way in enhancing the national security.

The operational clearance comes after over three decades of LCA development and research spearheaded by Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA, a DRDO outfit), overcoming technology denial regimes faced by India following the Pokhran-II test. The final operational clearance is expected to be given to the aircraft sometime next year.

The light-weight LCA, powered by American GE-F404 engine, has been developed from the scratch, putting India in the select club of nations that can develop fighter aircrafts. The flight test phase of Tejas was initiated in January 2001. The LCA had completed 1,508 flight tests using various variants and had carried out weapon tests among other tests.

Air Chief Marshal Naik - while congratulating the ADA and the HAL- said the IAF would like to see improvement in some of the areas before the LCA was inducted into the force.

He said wake penetration test, all-weather clearance and lightning clearance were among the areas in which he would like to see the LCA fine-tuning its performance.

Naik, however, confirmed that the IAF had already placed orders for 40 LCAs with four aircraft slated for delivery this year, including two in coming June. The first two squadrons of LCA - consisting of 20 aircraft each - would be deployed in Sulur in Coimbatore district of Tamil Nadu, he said.

A flight display by two LCAs - one a prototype and the other a limited series production variant - was the highlight of the function. The delta wing planes roared off from the ground in great style disappeared in the horizon and then returned to land. The planes, however, refrained from doing any aerobatics. The DRDO had initially said three planes would fly, though only two planes took part in the demonstration.

The LCA is slated to replace the ageing fleet of MiG-21 aircrafts. Antony said the IAF and the Navy together had a requirement of 200 LCAs. While the first 40 LCAs would be using the GE 404 engines, the next batch of LCAs (Mk II) would be using the more powerful GE 414 engines.