IAF to have light combat plane by 2006

mumbai: the indigenously-made light combat aircraft (lca) which made its maiden flight on january 4, 2001 will be inducted into the indian air force (iaf) in 2006. chief designer of this fighter kota harinarayana, a distinguished alumnus of the indian institute of technology, mumbai, told new entrants of the institute that the time-span of 15 years taken for the fighter to be airborne after the initial design work was normal."any aircraft programme takes between 15 and 20 years to fructify. what is conceived 15 years ago should, therefore, be valid for the next 20 years," he said. wing commander rajiv kothiyal, who piloted the maiden flight of the lca, also spoke to the students. illustrating his talk with slides to prove that the lca was a state-of-the-art fighter, mr harinarayana said it was equipped with a fly-by-wire system and advanced digital avionics. calling the indian fighter the smallest, lightest, multi-role supersonic fighter in the world, he said it would cost rs 5,000 crore. in contrast, the european fighter aircraft costs rs 6,000 crore and the u.s. f-22 rs 10,000 crore. according to his estimates, the iaf's initial requirements would be about 250 lcas. harinarayana said india should design and make its own fighters because it is the second most populous country in the world with a "highly volatile security environment". in addition, the nation also has the advantage of a large pool of scientific manpower. the main disadvantage of either importing aircraft or permitting their licenced manufacture was that india would always be dependent on another country, he said. he added that the last fighter made in the country was the hf-24 (marut) in the 1960s with the help of german design teams. "in the absence of an active fighter development programme, the infrastructure remained stagnant, scientists and engineers disappeared and the technology development failed to attract attention," he said. it was in this context that the lca project was significant. according to him, it necessitated the development of a host of new technologies in more than 40 disciplines involving hundreds of work centres all over the country. "nearly 80 per cent of the indigenous content has been achieved in the first prototype itself," he stated. almost 300 private industries had participated in the lca project, he said. wing commander kothiyal said there had been 12 flights of the lca since it first flew on january 4 and its performance was satisfactory. but, he noted, the noise level in the cockpit could be lower.