India’s Light Combat Aircraft Completes Maiden Mid-air Refueling Trial
India’s Light Combat Aircraft (Tejas LSP8) has successfully completed its first mid-air refuelling trial.
A few days ago, on September 4 and 6, 2018, the successful dry docking of aerial refueling probe with mother tanker was carried out. The wet-engagement was conducted on September 10, 2018 by transferring 1900 Kgs fuel from IAF IL78 mid-air refueling tanker.
The refueling was carried out at an altitude of 20000 ft. The aircraft speed was 270 knots and all the internal tanks and drop tanks were refueled.
The HAL Tejas is an Indian single-jet engine, multirole light fighter designed by the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) and produced by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) for the Indian Air Force and Indian Navy. The Tejas Limited Series Production 8 (LSP 8) completed its first flight trial in March 2013. The LSP 8 is the production version of this aircraft.
“With this, India joins the elite group of countries who have developed the Air-to-Air (AAR) system for military class of aircraft”, said R Madhavan, CMD, HAL.
Piloted by Wing Commander K M J Siddharth Singh of the National Flight Test Centre (NFTC), this significant milestone was achieved today at 0930 hrs with designers from HAL and ADA closely monitoring the system parameters from the ground station at Gwalior.
“The performance of aircraft systems (mainly Fuel & Flight controls systems) during the trial were in-line with the design requirements and were closely matching the results of extensive ground tests of air-to-air refueling system,” the company said in a statement.
The Tejas will be on display at the Aero India 2019 in Bangalore from 20–24 February 2019. This five-day event will combine a major trade exhibition for the aerospace and defence industries with public air shows.
