Tue, May 25, 2010
Official First Flight Conducted Over Bangalore Monday
The first light attack helicopter to be produced domestically in
India officially flew for the first time in Bangalore Monday.
India's Hindustan Aeronautics Limited built the LCH, which is
expected to be combat-ready in four to five years.
The news site 2point6billion.com reports that the Indian Air
Force has already ordered 65 of the light attack helos, while the
Indian Army has plans to acquire 114 of the aircraft. Indian Air
Force Vice Chief Air Marshall P.K. Barbora said the LCH could
eventually be exported to "friendly countries."
Defense Production Secretary R.K. Singh was among those to
witness the first flight of the helicopter. He said a four-year
projection for delivery to that country's armed forces would be a
"reasonable time frame" for HAL to meet. He said it is important
that a country be able to produce the weaponry used by its military
forces, and recognizes that development of weapons systems and
aircraft is "extremely lucrative."
In a news release, HAL said The LCH inherits many technical
features of the Dhruv which includes the rotor system transmission,
power plant, hydraulics, IADS, weapons system and avionics. The
features that are unique to LCH are a narrower fuselage, tricycle
landing gear, tandem cockpits, crashworthy & self sealing fuel
tanks, airfoil shaped stub wings for weapons, armour protection,
NBC protection and, low visibility features.
LCH will be fitted with a 20 mm Turret gun and can carry rockets
or air-to-air / air-to-ground missiles on the weapon
stations.
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/laser designator.
The LRF & LD facilitate measurement of range to the target
& guidance to the laser guided missiles respectively. A digital
video recorder would enable recording of the vital mission for
debriefing purposes. The turret gun skewing is controlled by the
helmet mounted sight of the gunner.
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