This is how you should not run a program... Foreign input delay, internal delays, no pilots etc etc...
Tejas may skip operational clearance deadline
Ravi Sharma
BANGALORE: Worried over the pace of the indigenous Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas programme, the Indian Air Force has suggested that the deadline for the fighters initial operational clearance (IOC) be postponed.
According to the latest schedules, the IOC is December 2010. But with a number of issues dogging the design and development of the fighter, the postponement was suggested during last weeks monthly review meeting. Senior officials from the designers, the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA), the IAF (including the newly appointed Deputy Chief of Air Staff Air Marshal N.V. Tyagi) and the manufacturer, Hindustan Aeronautics, were present.
Highly placed sources told The Hindu that the software integration of crucial equipment like the Israeli-built multimode radar (MMR) with the aircraft was yet to be completed. The lack of a radar meant that crucial points on the flight envelope were yet to be tested.
The ADA has still not provided HAL with the digital flight control computer and air data computers which have to be integrated into the LCA programmes Limited Series Production 3 (LSP3) aircraft.
The new LSP3, which was scheduled to make its first flight in June 2008, is now expected to do so only in September.
Both the IAF and the ADA have bemoaned the low sortie generation by HAL. Just 11 sorties were undertaken in April, 24 in May and 23 in June. Officials claim that a minimum run rate of 30 sorties a month is required to meet the present IOC deadline. With this in mind, a plan to prepare two aircraft for flying in the forenoon and one in the afternoon was worked out. But this has not fructified.
HAL officials, however, deny that sortie generation is the primary reason behind the delays. With two aircraft withdrawn from the flight test programme, we have just five aircraft to generate sorties, said an official.
And even the available aircraft are not fully fitted to undertake the flights that are required. We have even painted LSP3 in its new colour [grey] and are ready. LSP4 will have its ground run before the end of July and the fuselages for LSP5 and LSP6 are ready. On six occasions in June while the aircraft was prepared and the weather good, there were no pilots.
Officials said the IAF was aware of the shortage of test pilots at the National Flight Test Centre (the LCA is flown exclusively by these pilots) and was looking to increase their number.
