HAL completes Tejas FOC trainer deliveries and hands the IAF three HTT-40s

Hindustan Aeronautics Limited handed over two Light Combat Aircraft Tejas Final Operational Clearance twin-seat trainers and three HTT-40 basic trainers to the Indian Air Force in Bengaluru on Friday, 18 September. The same ceremony delivered four Dhruv Next Generation helicopters to Pawan Hans Limited. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Civil Aviation Minister K. Rammohan Naidu attended, with Air Chief Marshal A.P. Singh, Defence Production Secretary Sanjeev Kumar and Civil Aviation Secretary Samir Kumar Sinha present.

The two Tejas trainers are the last twin-seaters under the FOC contract placed in 2010. That contract covered 16 single-seat fighters and four twin-seaters. HAL said the trainers keep the core systems and combat fit of the front-line aircraft so pilots can move from the two-seat cockpit onto the fighter they will fly. Completing the four-trainer set closes a file that has run for 16 years.

Ankur and the basic trainer line

Singh named the HTT-40 Ankur at the ceremony. HAL describes the type as a basic trainer for aerobatics, general handling, instrument flying, navigation, night flying and close formation work. The aircraft first flew in 2016, later received a Restricted Military Type Certificate, and is listed with about 57 percent indigenous content. Three airframes in one day do not fill a training command. They start a line the IAF has wanted as a replacement for older basic trainers bought abroad.

The Dhruv NG helicopters are the civil-certified version entering Pawan Hans service. That is a different customer and a different regulator. Putting military trainers and a civil helicopter on the same dais is HAL showing it can sign both kinds of certificate on one afternoon.

What the ceremony does not finish

The wider Tejas programme still has later contracts, engine questions and squadron build-up ahead of it. Friday’s event does not resolve those. It does put the last FOC twin-seaters into IAF charge and gives the HTT-40 a service name. HAL chairman Ravi K said the three types show the company can deliver across fighter training, basic training and civil rotary-wing work. That is a manufacturer’s claim. The Air Force will measure it in hours flown and in how soon the Ankur aircraft sit on a training syllabus rather than a hangar floor.

The political wrapping was familiar: indigenous design, less dependence on foreign trainers, a stronger aerospace base. The countable yield from 18 September is two Tejas trainers, three HTT-40s and four Dhruv NGs, signed for in Bengaluru in front of two Union ministers.