Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, the company which developed Light Utility Helicopter (LUH) has finished its hot and high-altitude trails in the Himalayas, the reports stated on Wednesday.
The LUH took off from Leh and demonstrated its hot and high hover performance at Daulat Beg Oldie (DBO) Advanced Landing Ground (ALG) at 5000 MAMSL, a HAL statement said on Wednesday.
The helicopter also demonstrated its payload capability in Siachen glacier high altitude. During the trials, pilots landed the helicopter at the highest helipads of Amar and Sonam, it said.
The statements further added that,
“HAL has once again proved its indigenous capability in design & development”.
HAL CMD, R Madhavan said,
“The Army version of LUH is now ready for Initial Operational Clearance”.
According to Director (Engineering and R&D), HAL, Arup Chatterjee, the performance of the helicopter and its systems is satisfactory fulfilling the requirements of the users. All planned tests were successfully demonstrated.
The flights were carried out recently by a composite trial team which included pilots from HAL, Wg Cdr (Retd) Unni Pillai, CTP (RW), Wg Cdr (Retd) Anil Bhambani, Gp Capt (Retd) Pupinder Singh, and Gp Capt V Panwar along with Gp Capt R Dubey, Sq Ldr Joshi from Indian Air Force and Lt Col R Grewal & Lt Col Pawan from the Indian Army.
Representatives from certification authority witnessed the trials, it was stated.
The Initial Operational Clearance for basic LUH was accorded by CEMILAC (Centre for Military Airworthiness and Certification) for the IAF variant on February seven, 2020, HAL said.
