Renaissance in Indian Aviation: The Story of India’s Glorious Combat Flight

This is the story of the development of a new generation fighter called the light combat aircraft (LCA), 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-the-art 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 the development, and 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-the-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 the 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 the successful development of the LCA, Tejas.

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

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 first of its kind Aerospace Eco-System in the country. Thanks to his efforts, India succeeded in developing a state-of-art, high technology fighter aircraft of world class.

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

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