HAL Tejas

The Tejas single-seat, single-engine, lightweight, high-agility supersonic fighter aircraft has been undergoing flight trials in preparation for operational clearance.

As of January 2015 it had flown more than 2,800 test flights up to speeds of Mach 1.4.

The aircraft's design and development programme is being led by the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) of the Indian Department of Defence, with Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) as the prime industrial contractor.

Demonstrator aircraft maiden flight

The first LCA Demonstrator I aircraft made a maiden flight in January 2001, with the LCA Demonstrator II flying in June 2002.

In addition, a second prototype vehicle (PV-II) made its maiden flight in December 2005 and third in December 2006. In April 2006, the Indian Government approved limited series production of 20 Tejas for the air force.

First flight of the production aircraft was undertaken in April 2007, followed by the Tejas trainer variation's first flight in November 2009.

The fourth and fifth limited series production aircraft (LSP-4) took their first flight in June and November 2010, respectively. Initial operational clearance (IOC) testing was completed in December 2010 and certification was approved in January 2011. The LSP-7 completed its maiden flight in March 2012 and the first flight of LSP-8 was made in March 2013.

Tejas successfully fired an infrared seeking air-to-air missile during weapon release flight tests in December 2013. It achieved the IOC in December 2013.

The first prototype vehicle has now completed its first flight with an advanced electronic warfare (EW) suite developed by DRDO.

In October 2014, the first series production aircraft successfully completed its maiden flight and was handed over to the Indian Air Force in January 2015.T Final operational clearance (FOC) is planned for 2015.

HAL will produce six Tejas fighter aircraft between 2015 and 2016 and has plans to increase the production up to eight and 16 aircraft each year. The aircraft's naval prototype also completed its maiden flight in April 2012.