Renaissance in Indian Aviation

This is the story of development of a new generation fighter called Light Combat Aircraft, Tejas, and the creation of aviation ecosystem in India. The book chronicles the successful development of a front ranking fighter, LCA Tejas. It provides a glimpse of state of technology in India when LCA programme was initiated, the technology gap that needed to be bridged to develop the aircraft, creation of a new organization to spear head development, challenges faced by the new Organisation.

The book dwells on the strategies adopted to bring together Industry, R&D and academic institutions together to develop the state of art technologies within the country. It provides guidance on what is to be done to get the total involvement of academic institutions in the development of technologies and the aircraft. It covers the systems and processes that were deployed for development of an air superiority fighter – a complex system of systems. The book also illuminates the background of the author, his training in academic institutions and on the job that equipped him to undertake successful development of LCA, Tejas.

This book would be valuable for students, managers, technologists, systems engineers, decision makers in the government and public as it provides real world experience of development leading to production and entry into service of a very complex fighter.

Author Biography

Kota Harinarayana is an acclaimed aircraft designer. As Programme Director and Chief Designer of India’s light combat aircraft, Tejas, he successfully directed the project and developed a first-of-its-kind Aerospace Eco-System in the country. Thanks to his efforts, India succeeded in developing a state-of-the-art, high-technology world class fighter aircraft.

He was the vice chancellor of Hyderabad Central University. He was the president of the Aeronautical Society of India and the founder chairman of the Design Division of the Aeronautical Society of India. He was one of the founders of General Aeronautics, a startup incubated by IISc, Bangalore. He received life time achievement awards from INAE, DRDO, SAE India, and the Aeronautical Society of India.

He was honoured with Padma Shri by the Government of India in the year 2002 for his contribution to Indian aeronautics.