BENGALURU: The Light Combat Aircraft (Tejas LSP8) has successfully completed the Wet (actual) engagement today by transferring 1,900 kgs fuel at an altitude of 20,000 feet. The refuelling was done from a mid-air refuelling tanker. In the wet engagement all the internal tanks and drop tanks were refuelled, a release by Hindustanm Aeronautics Limited (HAL) said.
Following the exercise, R Madhavan, CMD, HAL said that India has joined an elite group of countries with the Air-to-Air refuelling system for military aircraft. A few days ago, the successful dry docking of aerial refuelling probe with mother tanker was carried out on September 4 and 6, 2018.
The aircraft was piloted Wg Cdr Siddarth Singh of National Flight Test Center, with designers from HAL and Aeronautical Development Agency 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 was closely matching with the results of extensive ground tests of air-to-air refueling system, the release added.