SARAS completes second test-flight successfully

India's indigenous light transport aircraft SARAS was successfully test flown for the second time, on Wednesday.

The flight commanded by Wing Commander U P Singh, Group Captains R V Panicker and K P Bhat of Indian Air Force's Aircraft and System Testing Establishment, took off from HAL airport in the city for a textbook flight.  

This was the second of the 20 test flights planned for SARAS PT1N, before freezing the production version. Only last month-on January 24-- the first successful test was carried out. The design and development of the aircraft is by CSIR-National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL).

According to NAL, the production model design is expected to be ready by June-July this year.
Congratulating the CSIR-NAL scientists and the commanders of IAF - Aircraft and System Testing Establishment, Science & Technology Minister Harsh Vardhan said, the flight commanders deserve special appreciation for their courage to fly an aircraft, which was rejected earlier. The minister announced commendation award for the Commandant and the test crew of the ASTE.

Vardhan said, CSIR-NAL proposes to get the SARAS-Mk 2 version certified initially for military and subsequently for civil version. He said, SARAS will be 20-25% cheaper than any imported aircraft in the same category. The improved version will be a 19-seater aircraft instead of 14-seater.

"SARAS-Mk 2 will be ideal for commuter connectivity under Government of India's UDAAN scheme for variety of applications like air taxi, aerial search/survey, executive transport, disaster management, border patrol, coast guard, ambulance and other community services," said Vardhan. "Its successful development will be one of the game changers in the history of civil aviation in India."

Director General of CSIR Girish Saini said the cost of development and certification of SARAS-Mk 2 will be around Rs 600 crore with a time period of about 2 to 3 years.

IAF support

"IAF is committed to test and thereafter induct the first indigenously designed and manufactured Light Transport Aircraft. The IAF is fully supporting this programme and the design and configuration of the new version of SARAS would be frozen soon," said Air Vice Marshal Sandeep Singh.

Harsh Vardhan inaugurated the airport instrumentation facility and visited the exhibition organised on the Fast Track Translational Projects of CSIR-NAL. He dedicated this unique facility where flight control and avionics integration of civil aircraft can be carried out at single point and also visited the Wind Solar Hybrid System of CSIR-NAL.