STUNNING PHOTOS: Tejas Winter Trials At Leh Last Month

The Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) has put out this stunning bunch of photographs of the latest round of winter trials of the LCA Tejas in Leh — the world’s highest air base — in January this year. Will update this post with details of the trials. Meanwhile, friend Ananth reports that the LCA completed 2,000 flights yesterday.
Photos / ADA

30 thoughts on “STUNNING PHOTOS: Tejas Winter Trials At Leh Last Month”

  1. WINTER TRIALS, SUMMER TRIALS, AUTUMN TRIALS, MONSOON TRIALS, SPRING TRIALS, DAY TRIALS, NIGHT TRIALS,DUSK TRIALS, AFTERNOON TRIALS and the list goes on and on.

    Last year the LCA was at Leh for high altitude trials. What is going to be achieved this year that was not achieved last year? And which aircraft in the world has undergone 12 years of trials?

    But the important thing is we still do not know whether the AoA limitation has been overcome, the wake has been cleared and weapons integrated with the on-board radar to provide terminal guidance?

    In any other country (apart from Pakistan) the media would have tore apart the program with these questions and questioned why the LCA is in trials for 12 years. Case in point-the F-35 development program and analysts like Bill Sweetman to name just one. But not in India. Here media is quite content to post high and low resolution pictures.

    It happens only in India.

  2. @Guru:

    Simply loved your comment……You are the real GURU no doubt….You missed naming two trials though, the most important ones: Political trails and Desi-Product falling in love trials…..Unfortunately, Tejas has miserable failed on both counts…

  3. I feel high time now to go for tejas MK2 within 6 months make it fly and within 1 year make AMCA fly. Conduct the certification quickly and cancel the Rafale. It is too expensive and we cannot afford it. 41 million for mirage upgrade then 100 million plus for rafale upgrade. I feel it is high time a suppliers line is developed and HAL should do the assembly with suppliers responsible for sub contract of their part of project. Take help from Japan and Korea as they are also in need of cost effective high end product due to China's posturing. Develop a computerized assembly line and mass produce these two planes at 40-60 planes a year and soon you would find export potential.By developing these planes the money remains in the country and continuously up gradation can take place which will be cost effective.

    TIMBAKTOO

  4. Tejas is not a light combat fighter plane instead it is a light combat test plane. And it been in service for 12 years till now.

    1. Actually it is least chance aircraft…the drdo or dodo has been fooling everyone forever..And whenever thy are under pressure they fool people I with more tests

  5. su-30mki… when rao paid russians… 1000k… for enhanced flanker concept… on paper around 1995/6… it was where tejas… is now… if still mki is just maturing… tejas will reach much faster maturity… than any other fighter attack bird… out there… or will ever fly…

  6. Nice one Guru,
    It might offend us what he said but is nearest to truth.I don't really understand why it's getting delayed year after year. ADA has access to everything. They have engines from US, electronic components from Israel including missiles. And all we see is LCA taking a walk in the park when it is supposed to sprint.ADA claims how successful it has been without any trial accidents. Sure it is when they barely reach its testing envelope. Had it been a private company, the program manager would have been fired and hanged. Just because it's a PSU, you can't let it drag LCA for decades.

  7. People shedding crocodile tears over it's delay in induction are living in rip van winkle world.Tejas has entered series production with a separate production line and the first series production aircraft is expected latter.
    Also it is not a 12 year test flight program. The first twos were TDs to demo the tech. only after all the tech is demonstrated to be viable LSPs started rolling out latter with comabat specs.

    The IAF took 7 years simply to evaluate and finalize the MMRCA contender.

  8. Shiv, you have successfully ripped these off tejas.gov.in. Sadly, the website says these were the trials conducted in the winter of 2013. Lack of quality check I presume..!!

  9. TO BASHING TEJAS MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION PLZ ……my two cents

    FIRST OF ALL TEJAS GIVEN ITS LEVEL OF STRUCTURAL SOPHISTICATION , TEJAS HAS NO COMPETITION .

    SECONDLY, TD-1 TD-2 , WERE DESIGNED AROUND AIR STAFF REQ OF A 4+ TON AIRCRAFT WITH A WEAPONS LOAD OF 2 TONS. (this was in 2001)AND KAVARI WAS PERFECT WITH THIS JOB.

    THEN

    THE AIR STAFF REQ CHANGED AND NOW THEY WANTED A 5+ TON AIRCRAFT WITH A 4 TON OF WEAPON LOAD. *that where kavari FAILED

    SO

    A VERY GIANT LEAP , MASSIVE BY AERONAUTICAL STANDARDS, ESP FOR COUNTRY INDIA, I MEAN WE, WERE ARE NOT UNKNOWN TO AIRCRAFT PRODUCTION .
    IN WW2 HAL MYSORE , WAS BIGGEST OVERHAUL FACILITY IN EAST . WE HAVE MANAGED TO PRODUCE MORE THAN 300 MIG 21 IN LESS THAN 15-18 YRS .
    AND LASTLY, LET'S NOT FORGET , THE TECHNOLOGICAL EMBARGO , AND THE FACT THAT THE REAL MONEY FOR TEJAS PROGRAM WAS SANCTIONED IN 1993, BEFORE THAT IT WAS JUST ADVANCE RESEARCH ,
    AND EVEN IF HAL AND ADA HAD THE MONEY, THE COMPUTERS AND COMPOSITES WERE FAST OR PRODUCTION WORTHY ENOUGH .

    TEJAS PROGRAM IS HEALTHY AND WAS ALWAYS ABOUT SHOOTING FOR THE STARS RATHER THAN THE MOON , IT MAY SOUND STUPID,BUT ITS A FAR SIGHTED APPROACH. ITS FOR NEXT 40 YEARS …….INITIAL TEJAS WAS DESIGNED AS A REPLACEMENT FOR MIG-21 , TODAY'S' TEJAS ARE CLOSE TO MIRAGE .

    SO ……CLAM DOWN!!!! WE ARE DOING JUST FINE . 25 TO 30 YRS IS GENERALLY A 4 GEN PLUS AIRCRAFT DEVELOPMENT CYCLE TIME , ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD , AND WE STARTED FROM ABSOLUTE SCRATCH

  10. Rahul , the medicines which you take have been released to public use after extensive clinical trials involving humans and animals. After evaluating the efficacy of the drug and its side effects ,then only the drug is certified. same analogy is applied here too!!! drug wars takes place between MNCs due to copyright issues!!!

  11. To be a good fighter/attack aircraft, this plane should carry 2 drop tanks, 2X500 kg bombs, 2 AA missiles, 1 Recce/targeting pod (all-weather) and 1 ECM pod. And with all this it should have a CR of atleast 500 kms at a speed of 950 km/hr. Can Tejas do this.

  12. @8:50 PM…
    yeah… understand you born on venus… just wake up from sleep… found self on earth… its okay buddy…

  13. Tejas should have canards too…this will shorten its take-off to almost half a km. Agree with Anon@8:50…It should be able to take-off in adverse conditions with with complete weapon load.

  14. Rename this aircraft as ch***iya-jas.. coz thats what DRDO has been making of all Indians.No MMRCA in sight , MiGs dropping like flies, Su30 now middle aged. Imagine the scenario in a war…we'll get whooped..and grubby politicians will pay 'bhaavbheeni shraddhanjali'.Wake up India!!

  15. Stop bashing tejas. In case of DRDO and ada, they had to develop an aircraft industry along with a 4.5th generation aircraft with no experience of developing previous generation advanced fighters. They still made it successful. Indian air force pilots have termed it most pilot friendly fighter in Indian inventory. It can carry 8 hard points with a 500 km range.
    Don't say that jf-17 have been inducted in high number but if IAF had taken similar standard production of tejas would have started long before.
    Yous should rather search about how many failed fighter aircraft projects there are around the world.

    DRDO has give India agni, prithvi, nag, akash missile systems which are one the best in the world. They have also made pnaka rocket, nirbhaya cruise missile, astra bvraaam. What else do you want? You say an fighter aircraft and it should be delivered to you faster than a flipkart order!

  16. People should keep in mind that DRDO and ADA have not only developed a 4.5th generation fighter but also a aircraft developing industry too. Put Together the 30 year time scale isn't big by any standards.

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