Context

Defence ministry to procure 97 LCA Mark 1As from HAL in biggest-ever indigenous military equipment order.

About LCA

• Light Combat Aircraft Mk-1A variant is an indigenously designed, developed and manufactured state-of-the-art modern 4+ generation fighter aircraft.
• Tejas LCA Mk-1A will be superior over previous variants of LCA Tejas, in terms of avionics, performance, and weapons capabilities.
• This aircraft is equipped with critical operational capabilities of Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) Radar, Beyond Visual Range (BVR) Missile, Electronic Warfare (EW) Suite and Air to Air Refuelling (AAR).
• LCA Tejas Mk-1A will be flexible enough for hardware and software integration that would be required to fire different types of Beyond Visual Range (BVR), which are available in the inventory of the Indian Air Force (IAF).
• It is the first “Buy (Indian-Indigenously Designed, Developed and Manufactured)” category procurement of combat aircrafts with an indigenous content of 50% which will progressively reach 60% by the end of the programme.