According to sources close to idrw.org, first two Production aircrafts of Countries indigenous fighter aircraft Program will be ready soon; both SP-1 and SP-2 are almost ready and will be handed over to IAF once IOC-2 is achieved by Tejas aircrafts.
First Production aircraft is one year behind schedule, but it was told to idrw.org that delays were not due to production issues but due to Tejas Project not achieving IOC-2 standard, aircrafts were built at a slower rate, IAF ordered 20 Tejas MK-1 aircrafts based on IOC-2 Configurations and it was unlikely that IAF could have accepted Production aircrafts without Tejas Project achieving IOC-2.
Defence minister and DRDO chief have promised IOC-2 for Tejas will be achieved by end of this year and Production aircrafts will be handed over to Indian air force at the same time , DRDO and HAL are also trying to deliver two more Production aircrafts by mid of next year .
DRDO is also planning to rollout first prototype of Tejas MK-2 by mid of next year and first flight by end of next year, they are also plans to put Naval Tejas back in air soon, aircraft has been going through intensive changes to its landing gear and undercarriage and will be shifted to Ins Hansa base in Goa for further testing, single seater variant of Naval Tejas is also likely be ready by end of this year.
IAF has placed orders for 20 IOC-2 Tejas MK-1 and 20 FOC Tejas MK-1, while Navy has placed orders for 8 Naval Tejas based on MK-1 configuration but will be ordering up to 40 Naval Tejas MK-2 for carrier operations, while IAF is looking forward to induct more than 80 aircrafts based on Tejas MK-2 but the follow up order will grow to 150 as per sources.
No comments:
Post a Comment