HAL achieves major milestone, first aircraft of Tejas Mk1A takes to skies in Bengaluru

Bengaluru: The first Aircraft LA5033 of the Tejas Mk1A series took to the skies from the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) facility in Bengaluru on Thursday. It was a successful sortie with a flying time of 18 minutes, the HAL said in a statement.

“HAL achieved this significant production milestone with concurrent design and development amid major supply chain challenges in the global geo-political environment subsequent to the contract signature in February 2021. The flight was piloted by CTP, Group Captain K. K. Venugopal (Retd),” HAL stated.

A. Bharat Bhushan Babu, Principal Spokesperson, Ministry of Defence, said, “HAL achieves a significant production milestone with the successful test sortie of Tejas Mk1A aircraft today.

The Tejas Mk1A will have an advanced radar, electronic warfare and communication systems, additional combat capability and improved maintenance features,” he said.