Prime Minister Narendra Modi took to Twitter over the historic landing of the indigenous Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas on aircraft carrier INS Vikrant and said “efforts towards Aatmanirbharta are on with full vigour”.

“Excellent! The efforts towards Aatmanirbharta are on with full vigour,” PM Modi said in a tweet on Wednesday.

In a historic first, Indian Navy pilots on Monday carried out a successful landing of LCA Tejas on aircraft carrier INS Vikrant. This was the first landing of a fixed-wing aircraft on INS Vikrant which was commissioned into the Navy last September.

“Historical milestone achieved towards #AatmaNirbharBharat by #IndianNavy as Naval Pilots carry out landing of LCA(Navy) on @IN_R11Vikrant. Demonstrates #India’s capability to design, develop, construct & operate #IndigenousAircraftCarrier with indigenous Fighter Aircraft,” Indian Navy spokesperson tweeted.

LCA Tejas is a single engine, light weight, highly agile, multi-role supersonic fighter. It has quadruplex digital fly-by-wire Flight Control System (FCS) with associated advanced flight control laws.

The aircraft with delta wing is designed for ‘air combat’ and ‘offensive air support’ with ‘reconnaissance’ and ‘anti-ship’ as its secondary roles. “Extensive use of advanced composites in the airframe gives a high strength to weight ratio, long fatigue life and low radar signatures,” a press release said.

Tejas is equipped with state-of-the-art features like glass cockpit, zero-zero ejection seat, inflight refueling probe and jam-proof AESA Radar, among others, which make the aircraft “more lethal,” it said.

LCA has come a long way in terms of development and presently available in Air Force fighter & twin seater and LCA Navy fighter and twin seater. Other variants like LCA LIFT (Lead in fighter trainer) and MK-2 are being developed for LCA Tejas.

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