Good video for those interested in the Tejas and has some interesting updates:
1) Tandem pylon with tandem bombs tested already
2)
90% by surface area composites - carbon fiber composites help in reducing RCS
3) Discussion on the belief that the Tejas is underpowered.
Balaji states that "I believe, in some sense that ADA has been a culprit in understating, the performance of this airplane. that probably is the cause for these statements that the airplane is underpowered"..
but he states that the program has achieved many milestones this year where the airplane has performed much better than anticipated because the predictions were a little conservative because its being done for the first time..and then goes on to give the example of the recent high altitude hot and high tests for the Tejas twin seater. 28-29 deg C, from Leh (10,682 ft above sea level). The Tejas trainer took off with 2 pilots, 2 X 1000 lbs bombs, 2 X 1000 ltr drop tanks and 2 X R-73 dummy rounds in less than the expected distance, fully loaded, with enough spare margin.
4) Optimizing to get the maximum possible g and angle of attack performance from the jet currently. Claimed to be the most unstable aircraft in the world and performance claimed to be comparable to any airplane of its class.
5) Air chief for the first time ever, flew the Tejas trainer from the back seat without having been in a simulator before. He was so comfortable that he took over controls during take off (against the script for that sortie) and pulled 4.5-5 G maneuvers loving every aspect of it. It is a testimony of its ease to fly.
Source :
http://www.ndtv.com/video/shows/walk-the-talk/walk-the-talk-with-team-tejas-434144?video-featured
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