Sky Guardians Of Tomorrow: India Today flies the LCA Tejas

The Defence Ministry allowed India Today the opportunity to become among the first national broadcasters to get to the coveted seat of the Tejas, which made its first appearance at the Republic Day parade, and take a flight.

It is the belief of the government and the Indian Air Force (IAF) that India, in order to secure its skies, needs about 42 squadrons of aircrafts- i.e. fighter planes of which each squadron should have about 18 odd jets.

In reality, India just has about 33 squadrons as of now of which 11 are of legacy aircrafts like the MiG 21 which have almost outlived their utility. Hence, a crisis does exist.

After hundreds of revisions, nearly 3,500 trial flights and a total developmental cost of about Rs 8,000 crore, the light combat aircraft 'Tejas' is finally here. The IAF over the next decade will induct nearly 123 light combat aircraft Tejas of varying configurations to replace as many MiG 21s, which now are set to retire.