Press Release (February - 03, 2005)

• Gp Capt RKS Bhadauria, Test Pilot, ADA/NFTC has completed his 100^th flight test sortie on Tejas (LCA) today. He flew today Tejas PV1 which was its-79^th flight. Gp.Capt Bhadauria is the second test pilot to achieve this feat. Sqn Ldr Suneet Krishna had earlier completed 100^th flight test on Tejas. All systems of the aircraft were performing normal.

• Three Tejas aircfaft have been flying  for expansion of flight test envelope  to 15km altitude, Mach 1.4 and angle of attack of 20 deg with +4.5G to -1.0G limits at present. Parallely, work on weapons systems and multi mode radar integration have started.

• So far, eight Test pilots of IAF have evaluated these aircraft including Air Cmde RK Sharma the present Project Director ( Flight Test ), ADA/NFTC. The handling qualities as well as the performance of these aircraft have have been adjudged supreb.

• Tejas  (LCA) has so far comleted over 187 hours of flight test in 340 flight test sorties  on three prototype aircraft. The fourth prototype is undergoing systems integration test prior to its clearence for flight.