 |
| Tejas cross-wind landing with chute. |
 |
| Night flying. |
 |
| Tejas flying with assymmetric store configuration. |
 |
| Takeoff with bombs and drop tanks. |
By Anantha Krishnan M
Express News Service
Bangalore: Scientists attached to the Centre for Military Airworthiness and Certification (CEMILAC) are giving the final touches to the 500-plus pages Release to Service Document (RSD) – which will be handed over to the Indian Air Force (IAF) as an assurance of the test points completed by Tejas variants ahead of its second initial operational clearance (IOC-2). Every since the first IOC-1 event held on January 10, 2011, the CEMILAC team had their task cut out to go through a series of complex certification processes to ensure the supreme safety of the aircraft.
In an interview to Express on Tuesday, Dr K Tamil Mani, Director-General (Aeronautical Systems), DRDO and Chief Executive CEMILAC, admitted that the certification process of Tejas was the most challenging task his team has undertaken so far. “All the aspects what we have handled are directly related to the safety of the aircraft. In the initial days the term certification and the nuances involved were alien to many but today we are the final word. There are no compromises ever made,” Tamil Mani said. The CEMILAC officials had on many occasions rejected the inputs provided by various stakeholders of Tejas.
The fact that Tejas had no major incidents reported since its maiden flight on January 4, 2001, is seen as the strict flight clearance mechanisms put in place by CEMILAC and other certifying agencies. “Regulatory bodies, no longer isolate themselves to the rule book. Their concurrent participation in all development activities has enhanced better understanding of the safety implications of the aircraft and eventually leading to a smoother certification,” Tamil Mani said.
During the IOC-2 period, the stores integration and release (including missile firing) were undertaken on several occasions, clearing crucial test points. “The multi mode radar (Elta from Israel) was integrated and completely tested. The operational capabilities of Tejas at high altitude and low temperature was tested at Leh, in addition to expanding the flight envelope to 6 G,” says P R Baghel, Group Director (Systems), CEMILAC.
The IOC-2 period also saw the AoA (Angle of Attack) of the aircraft being increased from 17 to 22 degrees. The aircraft also demonstrated its capability to touch the AoA of 24 degrees as well. (Higher AoA is not a regular phenomenon and it happens only during carefree manouvering.) Among other critical parameters cleared by Tejas include: emergency jettisoning of all stores at one go (ensuring they don’t collide with each other after the release), engine relight, wake penetration, night flying and all weather clearance.
The aircraft has touched a maximum speed of 1.4 Mach and a maximum height of 50,000 feet so far. Barring minor snags like tyre burst, increase in brake temperature, wrong indication of fuel quantity and non-deployment of brake parachute, the 2445 flights logged by Tejas have been incident-free.
Copyright@The New Indian Express
