Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 19

Indigenous fighter jet, Tejas, has finally come of age. It will make its debut during Republic Day flypast on January 26.Tejas would fly over the Rajpath in New Delhi during the parade, said Air Commodore Rajiva Ranjan, Principal Director, Air Defence. It will lead the display formation of fighter jets of the IAF inventory. The IAF will use three Tejas, which are designed by the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) of the DRDO and produced by public sector giant Hindustan Aeronautics Limited.The IAF has contracted 123 Tejas in various configurations; the first lot has been inducted. It will be after three decades that a homemade jet will fly during the Republic Day parade. The last time an indigenous fighter jet was part of Republic Day, it was in 1980s when HF-24 Marut, a 1960s’ German-designed plane was part of the flypast. Marut notably took part in the battle of Laungewala in 1971.A team of Tejas has been forward located at the IAF base Nal, near Bikaner. It will fly in from there and return to its temporary base. Tejas was inducted into 45 Squadron the ‘Flying Daggers’ on July 1, 2016. It’s based in Bangalore.‘Tejas’ is the first advance fly-by-wire (FBW) fighter aircraft designed, developed and manufactured in India. It has flown more than 3,000 sorties and 2,000 hours without any accident. It’s equipped with state-of-the-art satellite-aided inertial navigation system. It has a digital computer-based attack system and an autopilot. It can fire air-to-air missiles, bombs as well as precision-guided munitions.The next version of Tejas will incorporate Beyond Visual Range (BVR) missiles, improved, better stand-off weapons, air-to-air refueling capability, new generation Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) Radar and an integrated advanced electronic warfare suite.Besides Tejas, as many as 34 aircrafts of the IAF will be part of the Republic Day flypast. There will be 19 fighters, 11 helicopters and four transport aircrafts enthralling the public this year. UAE crown prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan is the chief guest.