India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday took a sortie in the twin-seat trainer variant of Tejas, in which there was a pilot from the Indian Air Force.
In a G-suite attire, Prime Minister Modi is the first prime minister of India to co-pilot Tejas for a few minutes from Bengaluru-based Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, manufacturer of the light combat aircraft.
Upon landing from Tejas, Prime Minister Modi in his cheerful post on X, formerly known as Twitter, wrote: "Successfully completed a sortie on the Tejas. The experience was incredibly enriching, significantly bolstering my confidence in our country's indigenous capabilities, and leaving me with a renewed sense of pride and optimism about our national potential."
Tejas is usually a single-seater fighter aircraft used by the Indian Air Force as well as the Navy.
Talking to Dhaka Tribune on India's homegrown Fighter aircraft Tejas, Captain Nikunj Parashar, co-founder and CEO of Sagar Defence Engineering said Prime Minister Modi has always emphasized the importance of India's light fighter “Tejas” and emphasized its role in enhancing India's self-reliance in defense production.
According to the defence hardware expert Parasgar, Tejas is known for its performance as a multi-role aircraft that can perform well air-to-air refueling (AAR) capability and is equipped with Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar and electronic warfare (EW) suite, making it superior to most similar fighter jets.
More importantly, its efficiency and effectiveness combined with the integration of modern avionics and weapons give it good combat capability. The combat aircraft can adapt to the evolving technological environment, Parashar told Dhaka Tribune.