‘Atmanirbharta’: 63 Of The 83 Newly Ordered Tejas Mk-1A Fighter Jets To Have Indigenously Developed Uttam AESA Radars

In a massive push for the Government's Make in India clarion call and its ambitious agenda to boost the domestic defence manufacturing, 63 of the 83 LCA Tejas Mk-1A fighter jets for which the order was recently accorded to Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) will be equipped with the indigenously developed Uttam radars instead of Israeli ones, reports Times of India.

Developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO)'s Bengaluru based LRDE laboratory, the Uttam radars will be fitted on all the Tejas Mk-1A jets starting from the 21st unit which will be manufactured by HAL.

To meet the delivery guidelines, HAL will be placing orders for 20 Israeli radars. As per the company's chairman and managing director R Madhavan, the Uttam radars should be ready for use thereafter.

“We will have the Uttam radar from the 21st Tejas Mk-1A to be produced. Uttam has performed better than anticipated in the trials so far. We’ve already signed an MoU with HAL,” DRDO chairman Sateesh Reddy was quoted in the report as saying.

It should also be noted that the HAL is targeting to increase the indigenous content in the homegrown fighter jet platform to 62-65 per cent from the present 52 per cent.

Uttam radar is a state-of-the-art AESA platform that can track multiple targets and take high-resolution pictures in a bid to aid reconnaissance activities. The radar is presently being tested on two LJA fighter jets and also on an executive jet.