LCA Tejas official Facebook page reported in brief that the long awaited LA-5005 (SP-05) flew for the first time yesterday after suffering technical glitches for a couple of months. The fighter jet will be handed of to the the No. 45 Flying Daggers after a few crucial tests. The Flying Daggers the first Indian Air Force (IAF) squadron to be equipped with the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas.

It was reported in May last year that SP-06 will fly ahead of SP-05. Interestingly the fourth series production Tejas-SP-04 (LA-5004) completed its first flight in March 2017 but HAL will skip sequential test flight this time since SP-06 will be airborne before SP-05. In a significant development, in May 2017 the Limited Series Production (LSP-4) successfully fired the Derby Beyond Visual Range Air-to-Air Missile (BVRAAM)  in radar mode.

SP-5 and SP-6 both were assembled at different production line and SP-5 was assembled at Second production line which was earlier used as Kiran hangar. HAL has used erstwhile Kiran trainer hangar to set up this additional production line which can produce three LCA Tejas per annum and 8 per annum with both production line.

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