The naval variant of the indigenous Tejas fighter has made its first landing on the INS Vikramaditya, India's only aircraft carrier, on Saturday 11th Jan, 2020.

The Indian Navy's Twitter handle informed, "The developmental LCA (N) MK1 achieved an important milestone today with the successful Arrested Landing on board the Indian Navy aircraft carrier ".

The DRDO informed the landing was conducted by Commodore Jaideep Maolankar. “After completing extensive trials on the Shore Based Test Facility, DRDO, ADA developed LCA Navy did an arrested landing on INS Vikramaditya successfully today 11 jan 2020 at 10:02 hours. Commodore Jaideep Maolankar did the maiden landing,” DRDO tweeted.

The single-seat fighter which landed today made its approach to the deck of the carrier at a speed of 128 knots (237 kilometres per hour) relative to the speed of aircraft carrier.

After lowering the arrestor hook mounted onto the rear of the fighter's fuselage, the prototype of the Tejas (Naval) snagged the third arrestor wire spread across the deck of the INS Vikramaditya. This enabled the fighter to come to a complete halt in about two seconds, safely within the length of the runway. The goal had been to snag the second of the three wires on the ship.

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