Basic Operational Clearance, User Trials of HAL’s HTT 40 Trainer Aircraft Soon

The basic operational clearance and user evaluation trials readiness of the HAL developed Basic Trainer Aircraft (BTA) HTT 40 is expected soon.

This information was revealed during a flight performed by Air Chief Marshal RKS Bhadauria, Chief of Staff of the Indian Air Force (IAF) on HTT 40 on Thursday.

The HTT 40 has completed all major test points and meets the Preliminary Staff Qualitative Requirements (PSQR) issued by Air Headquarters for the BTA programme. HTT-40 has successfully completed stalls, engine relights, inverted flying, acrobatic flying and systems testing.

During the sortie he assessed the aircraft flying characteristics including stall and spin.  The aircraft took to the skies at 1320 hours and remained airborne for an hour. The CAS was accompanied by HAL’s Chief Test Pilot (FW), Gp Capt (Retd) KK Venugopal.

ACM Bhadauria became the first serving Air Chief to fly in HAL developed aircraft at the prototype stage as Chief of the Air Force.  He expressed his satisfaction with the aircraft performance and appreciated the design, project and flight test teams for having achieved the commendable progress. The project now needs to be speeded up for certification and HAL must target setting of modern manufacturing facilities with high production rate from the beginning, he added.

VM Chamola, Offg. CMD, HAL thanked the Air Chief’s support and also congratulated the team HTT 40 for realizing the project in good time. Shekhar Shrivastava, CEO, Bangalore Comples stated that details for the production facilities required for producing HTT 40 in desired numbers have concurrently been worked out and HAL’s production will match the requirements of the IAF.