India is set to test fly its long-awaited Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) within a "couple of days," a defense official said Wednesday.
Development of the Indian-made multi-role combat aircraft, first sanctioned in 1983, has been subject to endless delays and has already cost somewhere in the region of 25 billion rupees (543 million dollars).
"The date has not been finalized but the aircraft will take wing very soon ... in a couple of days," an official at the Aeronautical Development Agency based in Bangalore told AFP.
"It is a top management decision. The good weather has been playing truant for the last two days. As it clears and conditions are suitable the aircraft will take off. In fact the aircraft has already had two taxi runs," he said.
The aircraft has a wing span of 8.2 meters (27 feet) with a height of 4.4 meters (14.5 feet) and is 13.2 meters (43.5 feet) in length.
It can carry seven weapon stations and has a provision for inflight refueling, as well as short take-off and landing capability.
A month ago, India's Defense Minister George Fernandes told reporters that the LCA project was at a "critical point."
At the same time, a parliamentary panel on defense said the LCA would not be ready for serial production before 2015.
Military analysts say the entire project has proved a bottomless pit in terms of expenditure and that no government has shown the political courage to simply scrap its development.
"It's really a case of good money chasing bad money," said analyst Rahul Bedi of Jane's Defense Weekly.
Bedi said the military was hoping that an Indo-Russian deal signed last week for the licensed production of Russian Sukhoi fighter jets would give the LCA project a boost.
The three-billion-dollar deal envisages the production of some 140 Su-30MKI fighters over the next 17 years by India's largest aerospace company, Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd, in Bangalore.
"The hope is that the Sukhoi technology can be incorporated in the LCA design," Bedi said -- BANGALORE (AFP)
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