Day after successful test flight, government clears procurement of 83 Tejas jets for IAF

New Delhi: The Defence Acquisition Council on Wednesday cleared procurement of 83 advanced version of Tejas aircraft, sources said.

The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) paved the way for procurement of 83 of the more advanced Mk1A version of the aircraft from Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) by finalising the contractual and other issues, they said.

An order of 40 Tejas aircraft had been placed with the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd in initial configurations.

Tejas, the first Light Combat Aircraft in Final Operational Clearance-standard (SP-21) took to the skies for its maiden flight in Bengaluru on Tuesday.

Piloted by Air Cmde. KA Muthana (Retd), Chief Test Flying (Fixed Wing), the aircraft took-off from HAL Airport at around 1230 hours, the Bengaluru-headquartered defence PSU said in a statement.

It was airborne for 40 minutes.

This flight signifies exemplary teamwork between various stakeholders of the LCA Tejas programme such as HAL, Directorate General of Aeronautical Quality Assurance, Centre for Military Airworthiness and Certification, Indian Air Force and Aeronautical Development Agency, HAL CMD, R Madhavan said.

"HAL achieved the momentous feat within a record time of 12 months after the release of Drawing Applicability List (DAL) and SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) by CEMILAC", the statement said.

"This would pave the way for the production of remaining 15 fighters from FOC (Final Operational Clearance) block, which are planned to be delivered during the next financial year", it said.

The FOC aircraft are equipped with advanced features such as Air-to-Air refuelling and Beyond Visual Range (BVR) missile system.

"It imbibes a lot of manufacturing improvements which were based on the operational feedback of LCA IOC (Initial Operational Clearance) fleet with IAF", HAL said.