On Republic Day, India's first home-grown fighter jet Tejas to fly past Rajpath for first time

Delhi: Indian Air Force's Light Combat Aircraft Tejas will fly over  Rajpath this Republic Day, as per a media report.

According to India Today, this is the first time that the indigenous jet will mark its first-ever Republic Day fly-past. 

On July 01, India's first home-grown fighter jet was finally inducted into the IAF after a tortuous saga spread over 33 long years with the launch of the first squadron of two Light Combat Aircraft(LCA) Tejas in Bengaluru.

Tejas aircraft is the fourth-plus generation lightweight, multi-role supersonic single engine jet.

The LCA, smallest and lightest of its class, was flown by Commanding Officer Group Captain Madhav Rangachari for a sortie for about seven minutes at that time at the induction ceremony and was given a water cannon salute on landing.

State-run Hindustan Aeronautics Limited(HAL) had handed over two Tejas aircraft to IAF at the ceremony held at the Aircraft System Testing Establishment.

The two Tejas aircraft, which were inducted into 45 squadron of IAF, also called as "Flying Daggers", which will be based in Bengaluru for the first two years before it is moved to Sulur in Tamil Nadu.

The aircraft was named "Tejas" (meaning radiance in Sanskrit) by Atal Bihari Vajpayee as PM.

Conceived as a replacement to the ageing MiG 21s, it has been designed by Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) and produced by HAL. 

The idea to have an indigenous fighter aircraft was conceptualised in the 1970s, but actual work on the aircraft project started only in the 1980s. The first flight was in January 2001 after the project often ran into rough?weather and came in for criticism over delay.

(With PTI inputs)