Army Chief General Bipin Rawat flies HAL's Light Combat Helicopter, Tejas

Bengaluru (Karnataka) [India], Feb 21 (ANI): Army Chief General Bipin Rawat, on Thursday, flew the Light Combat Helicopter (LCH) during ongoing Aero India at Air Force Station at Yelahanka here. The helicopter was piloted by Wg Cdr S John, HAL’s Test Pilot.
Terming the sortie in LCH as an experience of a lifetime, General Rawat said: "It is suitable for the Army to take on adversaries in any terrain and different altitudes."
LCH is a 5.5-ton class, combat helicopter designed and developed by HAL. It is powered by two Shakti engines and inherits many technical features of the Advanced Light Helicopter.
The helicopter would have day/night targeting systems for the crew including the Helmet pointed sight and Electro-optical pod consisting of CCD camera/FLIR/Laser Range Finder(LRF)/Laser Designator(LD). The LCH is fitted with Self Protection Suite consisting of Radar/Laser Missile warning systems and Countermeasures dispensing system. LCH received Initial Operation Clearance (IOC) on August 26, 2017, in the presence of the Defence Minister.
The features that are unique to LCH are sleek and narrow fuselage, tri-cycle crashworthy landing gear, crashworthy and self-sealing fuel tanks, armour protection and low visibility features which makes it agile and survivable.
LCH has the distinction of being the first attack helicopter to land in Forward Bases at Siachen, 4700 mts above sea level. RFQ for 15 Limited Series Production (LSP) was received on December 22, 2017, and quotation has been submitted on March 15, 2018.
R. Madhavan, CMD, HAL, G.V.S Bhaskar, CEO (Helicopter Complex), Wg Cdr, Unni Pillai, HAL’s Chief Test Pilot (Rotary Wing) and other senior officials from the Army had a briefing session before the sortie.
Earlier in the day, the Army Chief also flew in India's first indigenously designed Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas. After the sortie, General Rawat said: "Addition of such aircrafts would not only strengthen the airpower but would be beneficial to all the three forces as the tri-services work hand in hand."
"Whatever I could witness the avionics of the aircraft is very good and I could also see the manner in which the pilot was carrying out the targeting both in the radar mode and other modes," the Army Chief added. (ANI)