As Defence Minister Rajnath Singh successfully completed a sortie on the Tejas fighter in Bengaluru on Thursday, he became the first minister to fly on the indigenously developed combat jet. Speaking after the flight, Singh said it was among the most unique experiences of his life. “The sortie was very smooth and comfortable. I would like to congratulate HAL, DRDO, ADA and all those involved in designing the indigenous Tejas,” Singh said after the sortie.
Singh said he wanted to take a sortie only on the Tejas because it was an indigenously built aircraft. “We have proved to the world that we can built indigenous fighters and armaments and can even export to other countries as well,” said Singh.
The chairman of DRDO, G Satheesh Reddy, stated that India had become self-reliant in building fighter aircraft.
Reddy said that it was a proud moment for the Indian aeronautics fraternity as the defence minister flew the Tejas and successfully completed the sortie. Reddy said the Tejas production had got a boost when the aircraft had got final operational clearance in February this year. Reddy said that negotiations with the ministry of defence for the delivery of 83 Tejas aircraft had been completed.
Reddy revealed that the design activities of the MK2 version of the Tejas, a larger and more capable version, were going on, while the naval variant of the aircraft was ready.
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Air Vice Marshal N.Tiwari, project director, National Flight Test Centre of ADA, flew the sortie with Rajnath Singh on board. Tiwari revealed Rajnath Singh “was very comfortable and flew at less than Mach 1 speed and touched 2.5g [force on the body of acceleration due to gravity]” “The minister kept on discussing about the avionics system of the aircraft and I also discussed with him the technicalities of the fighter," said Tiwari. They did not touch supersonic Mach 2 speed as Tiwari wanted to show the capability of the aircraft to the minister.
The Tejas also has an on-board oxygen-generation system developed by Defence Bio-Engineering & Electro Medical Laboratory (DEBEL), a unit of DRDO. This system can keep generating oxygen as long as the aircraft is flying.
