Historical milestone! Naval pilots carry out landing of Light Combat Aircraft on India-made INS Vikrant

Mumbai: Scripting history on Monday afternoon, the indigenously-built and modified for naval operations Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas flew and landed with precision onboard aircraft carrier INS Vikrant, which was also made in India. The feat propels India into an exclusive club of nations that have successfully conducted such a flight operation on homemade aircraft carriers.

After the exercise, the Indian Navy tweeted, “Historical milestone achieved towards Atma Nirbhar Bharat by Indian Navy as naval pilots carry out landing of LCA (Navy) on R11 Vikrant. Demonstrates India’s capability to design, develop, construct & operate indigenous aircraft carriers with indigenous fighter aircraft.”

Testing of the LCA's naval variant

The jet was flown by Commodore Shivnath ‘DAX’ Dahiya and the Commanding Officer of the Indian Naval Air Squadron (INAS) 552 – which is a naval test squadron. The Navy currently operates two squadrons of MiG29K off their carriers which are inadequate in numbers. Thus, it has launched a new programme named MRCBF (Multi-Role Carrier-Based Fighter) in which the Navy aims to acquire 20-30 American F/A-18 Super Hornets or the French Rafale as a stopgap measure until the roll out of the twin-engine deck-based fighters sometime in the 2030s.

During its testing phase, the LCA's naval variant had previously landed on the Russian- built Indian aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya in January 2020. It was piloted by Commodore Jaideep Maolankar.