TEJAS Team Set New Record of 500 Flights in 2013

Tejas, India’s Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) set a new record on 27 December 2013 of flying 500 sorties in 2013. This is the highest sorties achieved in a calendar year so far.

The previous record stood at 300 sorties.In 2013, the team participated in seven  detachments across the country and carried out tests like shutting off and reignition of the engine, high energy brake testing, flight envelope expansion, missile firing with radar guidance, air-to-ground weapon testing and wet runway trials, the DRDO said.

About Tejas
• India’s indigenously designed and developed frontline fighter Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) started in 1983 to replace the ageing MiG-21 fighter aircrafts.
• It was christened as Tejas by the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2003 when Tejas crossed the sonic barrier for the first time.
• Tejas is the smallest, light weight, single engine, single seat and supersonic, multirole, combat aircraft. LCA Tejas is capable of flying non-stop to destinations over 1700 km away.
• Four variants of Tejas aircraft (Combat variant, Trainer and Naval variants) are being developed for land and carrier borne operations.
• Tejas has multi mode weapon multirole capability in the form of Air to Ground and Air to Air missions
• Tejas has quadruplex digital fly-by-wire flight system which ensures adequate safety and advanced Glass cockpit open architecture complements piloting.
• Extensive use of advanced composites in the airframe gives a high strength to weight ratio, long fatigue life and low radar signatures.
• Helmet Mounted Display Sight (HMDS) has been fully integrated in Tejas and R73E missile firing has been successfully demonstrated using HMD.

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