Aircraft Carrier Based LCA Tejas N Program May be Aborted | MoD NDTV, on Tuesday, published a report in which was stated that the Indian MoD was seeking a six-month period to arrive at a decision about this problem. This comes as India already has invested about $US 504 million in the project.
The aim of this six-month period of evaluation is to determine whether the prototypes of the Tejas-N, which are currently undergoing tests, will result in a multi-role carrier-borne fighter, or not. Until now, the Tejas-N has been tested with a sink rate of 5.1 m/s, whilst the value required to qualify for carrier-trials is of 5.6 m/s. This is not sufficient but Indian engineers working on the project claim that they will be able to reach the 5.6 m/s within the six-month period.
The team in charge of developing the fighter told NDTV that key landing trials of the fighter will be conducted on a shore-based version of the aircraft carrier deck. Then, trials on India’s INS Vikramaditya carrier will be carried out based on the shore-test results. Test pilots will then have to perform several touch-and-goes on the deck of the Indian carrier before a full-fledged arrested landing. Though, the arrestor gear of the Indian aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya has key differences from the gear installed at the shore-based test facility, which therefore could bring some problems to the project too.
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