By Anantha Krishnan M
https://twitter.com/writetake
Bengaluru, April 01: Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) successfully carried out the first flight of a Jaguar DARIN III upgraded ‘strike’ aircraft at its facilities in Bengaluru recently.
HAL officials confirmed to OneIndia that the first flight of the upgraded Jaguar ‘strike’ aircraft lasted for about 15 minutes.
The maiden flight was followed by another flight of the upgraded Jaguar that lasted for an hour on March 25 for an hour.
In November 2012 HAL had carried out the first flight of Jaguar DARIN III upgraded ‘maritime’ aircraft, with an unhappy Indian Air Force (IAF) wanting more features to be added on to the aircraft.
“The IAF had some concerns with the Mission Computer used in the maritime aircraft. It was of DARIN-II standard. We have now upgraded all possible systems on the aircraft as per the user requirement,” HAL Chairman T Suvarna Raju told OneIndia.
Three Jaguar prototypes (strike, maritime and trainer) have been set aside for testing the DARIN-III features. Raju says that HAL is mandated to upgrade 59 Jaguars that were inducted into the IAF, forming the original batch.
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