HAL carries out hot refueling trial on Tejas      

BENGALURU: Inching close to Final Operational Clearance (FOC), Hindustan Aeronautics Limited has carried out a hot refueling trial on the indigenous Light Combat Aircraft-Tejas, followed by a sortie at the HAL airport here.

The hot refueling cum sortie of LCA-Tejas was conducted yesterday.

The system performance during the refueling session was in-line with design requirements and was satisfactory, HAL  said in a release.

In the history of IAF aircraft, LCA would be the first to fly with this unique capability of hot refueling and HAL has successfully demonstrated this on LCA Tejas LSP8 aircraft, it said.

Hot Refueling is a single point pressure refueling of  the aircraft with the engine in operation.

It is a process by which a fighter aircraft is refueled (in between sorties) while its engine is in operation, thereby cutting down refueling time by half and turn-around time significantly. (AGENCIES)