Rajnath Singh flies in Tejas: Things to know about the ‘Made in India’ combat aircraft

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Rajnath Singh on Thursday became the first defence minister to fly on the Tejas, the light combat aircraft that has been developed indigenously. It has been bujilt by Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL).

The defence ministry has said that Rajnath Singh is taking the Tejas sortie in order to boost the morale of those who have been involved in the development of the aircraft.

Here are a few points about Tejas

— The combat aircraft has been designed and developed by the Bengaluru -based Aeronautical Development Agency, an arm of the state-run Defence Research and Development Organisation.

— Tejas is a fourth generation fighter jet. It is a single engine, delta wing, multi-role fighter

— A batch of the Tejas aircraft has been inducted into the Indian Air Force. The naval version is in the development stage and a critical test was conducted successfully last week through “arrested landing”, an ability to land on board an aircraft carrier.

— The navy needs fighter jets for aircraft carriers. Certainly so for INS Vikrant that is under advanced stages of construction. Navy Chief Admiral Sunil Lanba has said INS Vikrant will be delivered to the navy by 2021.

— The air force has placed order for 40 Tejas aircraft and last year issued request for proposal to induct 83 jets at a cost of Rs 50,000 crore

— 16 weaponised LCAs have been inducted by the IAF into its combat fleet since June 2018. Initially, the air foce will have two squadrons of Tejas with 18 fighters each. There are plans to add more squadrons later. IAF plans to buy 83 Mk-1A jets, taking the total number of light combat aircraft ordered to 123.

— On January 17, 2008, Nirmala Sitharaman flew in a Sukhoi-30 MKI fighter from the Sukhoi fighter jet from the Jodhpur airbase in Rajasthan. Former defence minister George Fernandes also flew in a Sukhoi and so did former Presidents APJ Abdul Kalam and Pratibha Patil.