BREAKING: LCA Navy Takes Off!

Sadly, I couldn’t be there, but I had a friend hold his phone to the air at Bangalore’s HAL airport as the LCA Navy prototype roared into the air a few moments ago on its long-delayed debut flight! (I’d posted last morning about the flight.)

The NP-1 twin seat trainer prototype took off at 12.10pm on a 20 minute flight. The aircraft was piloted by Commodore Jaideep Avinash Maolankar, Chief Test Pilot with the NFTC, and co-piloted by Wing Commander M. Prabhu, flight test engineer (FTE). Both pilots report that the first flight was a success and that the aircraft responded as expected.

Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal N.A.K. Browne, Deputy Chief of Naval Staff Vice Admiral Satish Soni and DRDO chief Dr V.K. Saraswat were among those who witnessed the first flight.

The platform has had several technical hurdles that the team has worked hard to sort out. Stay tuned for updates and photos. As always, you heard it first on Livefist 🙂 Godspeed and all the very best to the LCA Navy team, led by Commodore (Retd) C.D. Balaji.

20 thoughts on “BREAKING: LCA Navy Takes Off!”

  1. My Office is close to HAL. Saw two Tejas roared into the sky, just 15-20 minutes back. Were quite high above, so could not identify anything specific to Naval version, but could sense that it might the first test flight of Tejas-Naval.

    Congratulations to all personnel, involved.

  2. I think our agencies have taken the warning of Armageddon(End of the world) on 21st December 2012, very seriously that is why they are in haste of achieving all milestones ASAP before it. KUDOS
    Next target "NIRBHAY"

  3. Great News !! Congtaz to everyone involved in making LCA Navy fly…

    @ Shiv: Please do make positive reporting. In this day of first flight also you are focusing on the delays etc.

  4. lsp7, Ins Chakra, Agni V, Ritsat-1 commissioning of INS Tez now LCA Navy.. its just too great month for indian defence . lots more to come as the whole of agni series testing is in the pipeline next month.followed by nirbhay cruse missile…n many more

  5. Heartiest congratulations to ADA/HAL! My humble advise to HAL is that they should involve heavily private companies like Taneja, Mahindra, Tatas etc in production process instead of doing it on their own at bureaucratic snail's pace.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


Scroll to Top