LCH makes maiden flight with indigenously developed AFCS

Bengaluru: HAL on Wednesday said it has carried out the first flight of Light Combat Helicopter (Technology Demonstrator-2) with the Automatic Flight Control System designed by it, for the first time in the country.

The maiden flight was 'flawless' and flew for 20 minutes with the engagement of the system throughout, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited said in a press release.

Wing Commander( Retd) Unni K Pillai, Chief Test Pilot and Group Captain (Retd) Rajesh Verma, Test Pilot were at the controls of LCH, it said.

The development of indigenous AFCS is a HAL funded project and would replace the high value imported system, HAL CMD T Suvarna Raju said.

"The AFCS is a digital four axis flight control system capable of performing control and stability augmentation function and auto-pilot modes of helicopters."

"The indigenous development of the Hardware, Software and Control Law is a fully in-house effort of HAL R&D Centres - RWR&DC and MCSRDC at Bengaluru, SLRDC at Hyderabad and Korwa Division," he said.

Representatives from certification agencies and senior officers from HAL were present during the flight.

HAL said it has already indigenised the Cockpit Display System on LCH, namely Integrated Architecture Display System (IADS) with the participation of Indian private industries and that development flight testing was under progress. The Initial Operational Clearance for LCH was given on August 26, 2017 in the presence of the Union Defence Minister.