IAF Air Chief Marshal flies Tejas MK1, Light Combat Helicopter & HTT-40 in Bengaluru

Indian Air Force (IAF) Air Chief Marshal Vivek Ram Chaudhari on Friday flew indigenous planes including Light Combat Aircraft Tejas Mk1 made by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, Light Combat Helicopter and training aircraft HTT-40.

These aircraft are being inducted into the Indian Air Force as part of its drive towards "Atma Nirbhar (self-reliant) in Defence". Air Chief Marshal Chaudhari is presently on a two-day visit to Bengaluru.

The upgrades on the Tejas programme and the capabilities of the other two indigenous platforms were demonstrated to the IAF chief. He also interacted with the test crew and designers to understand the current status and future plans.

Tejas is a single-engine, delta wing, light multirole fighter developed by HAL. The Tejas currently has three production models- Tejas Mark 1, Mark 1A and the trainer variant.

The HAL Light Combat Helicopter is a multi-role attack helicopter. HAL HTT-40 is a training aircraft which replaces the Air Force's retired HPT-32 Deepak as a basic trainer.

IAF retiring one MiG-21 squadron by Sep-end, entire fleet by 2025

The Indian Air Force recently said that it is going to retire one more squadron of the MiG-21 Bison aircraft by September 30. "The 51 Squadron based out of Srinagar air base is being number plated on September 30. After this, only three squadrons of the planes would be left in service and would be phased out by the year 2025," sources said.

Now every year, one squadron each of MiG-21 will be number plated, sources added. The MiG-21 fighter jets are replaced by more capable aircraft like the indigenous Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) and the Su-30. 

Image: Twitter/@IAF_MCC