On September 4 and 6, the Tejas had made a dry contact with the IL-78 exhibiting the plane’s ability to dock the refueling probe. On Monday, the Tejas Limited Series Production aircraft number eight (Tejas LSP-8) “successfully completed the Wet (actual) engagement by transferring 1,900 kg fuel from IL-78 midair refueling tanker.”
“The refueling was carried out at an altitude of 20,000 ft. The aircraft speed was 270 knots and all the internal tanks and drop tanks were refueled. A few days ago, the successful dry docking of aerial refueling probe with mother tanker was carried out on September 4 and 6, 2018,” HAL, the manufacturer of the fighter said in a statement.
Piloted by Wing Commander Siddharth Singh of the National Flight Test Centre (NFTC), the refueling took place at about 9.30am with designers from HAL and Aeronautical Development Agency — which designed and developed Tejas — closely monitoring the system parameters from the ground station at Gwalior.
“The performance of aircraft systems (mainly Fuel & Flight controls systems) during the trial were in line with the design requirements and closely matched with the results of extensive ground tests of air-to-air refueling system,” the statement read.
With this, India joins the elite group of countries who have developed the Air-to-Air (AAR) system for military class of aircraft, HAL’s new CMD R Madhavan said in his first statement to the media since taking charge earlier this month.
from Times of India https://ift.tt/2O1vaVt
