The third prototype of Indian Light Combat Helicopter (LCH) dubbed Technology Demonstrator TD-3, completed its successful maiden flight ...
The third prototype of Indian Light Combat Helicopter (LCH) dubbed Technology Demonstrator TD-3, completed its successful maiden flight on 12, November, from Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd's Bangalore plant.
The third prototype features major improvements to airframe for weight reduction. The flight was piloted by HAL's chief helicopter test pilot Wg Cdr Unni Pillai and co-piloted by Gp Capt SHK Nair. It took off at 15.20 hrs. and flew for 20 minutes flawlessly.
“Escorted by a Dhruv helicopter, the entire flight was flawless. It will be an effective weapon platform to deliver precision strikes at high altitude and we are confident it will meet the requirements of the IAF”, says Dr. R.K. Tyagi, Chairman HAL. “We are making all efforts to achieve IOC by September next year”, he adds.
The project initially envisioned design and development of two technology demonstrators, one full scale mock-up, one break away fuselage (BAF) to achieve the Initial Operational Clearance (IOC). The IOC is targeted for Septemeber 2015.
During development, HAL Board sanctioned manufacturing of TD-3 & TD-4 for acceleration of development flight testing. The TD-3 and TD-4 will be used to speed up the cold weather trials, hot weather trails and weapon firing trials.
Unlike the HAL Dhruv multi role helicopter which was developed along with German MBB (now part of Airbus Helicopters), the LCH is an all Indian design. It is powered by two uprated Turbomeca Ardiden turboshaft engine, locally called the Shakti engine. Along with the technologies developed for the Dhruv on which LCH is based, HAL has developed Integrated Avionics and Display System (lADS) & Automatic Flight Control System (AFCS) in order to reduce the dependency on foreign vendors.
In all HAL is expected to manufacture 179 LCH for Indian defence forces.
The breakaway fuselage of LCH was built and limit load testing was completed successfully in October 2012. LCH-TD-1 was first flown on March 29, 2010 and LCH-TD-2 was flown on June 28, 2011. Together both the TD-1 & TD-2, has clocked 285 flight hours in 388 flights.
