Air Chief Marshal RKS Bhadauria, Chief of the Air Staff of the Indian Air Force has made his maiden flight in HAL Light Combat Helicopter (LCH)
Atul Chandra
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: Nov 20, 2020 -
: 11:48 am
Air Chief Marshal RKS Bhadauria, Chief of the Air Staff of the Indian Air Force (IAF) has made a maiden flight in the HAL designed and developed Light Combat Helicopter (LCH) in Bangalore.
Air Chief Marshal Bhadauria was accompanied by HAL’s Deputy Chief Test Pilot, Wg Cdr (Retd) S P John over the course of the one hour flight.
“It was a very good sortie. I was able to look at the important flying characteristics and status of sensors already installed. The LCH is a potent platform due to excellent D&D efforts and well supported flight test team. The IAF is keenly looking forward to the induction of this aircraft and I am sure HAL will give required focus on productionisation at a fast pace,” Air Chief Marshal Bhadauria said following the flight.
The IAF and the Indian Army together need around 160 LCHs.
The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) had approved the proposal for initial batch of 15 LCHs.
A Request for Proposal (RFP) for 15 Limited Series Production (LSP) helicopters (10 for IAF and 5 for Army) has been issued by the IAF, and HAL had submitted its response.
HAL has already started Limited Series Production of the Light Combat Helicopter for the initial batch of 15 helicopters.
The LCH is a 5.8 tonne attack helicopter with a design service ceiling of 6.5 km. The attack helicopter has been specially designed for high-altitude operations.
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