Aeronautical Development Agency

The Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) of India's Ministry of Defence was established at Bangalore, in 1984 to oversee the development of the nation's Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) programme. Currently, the organisation is involved in design and development of multiple versions of LCA, HAL AMCA and UCAV. C D Balaji is the Director, ADA.

Airframe

HAL-Tejas uses as high as 70 percent composite in its airframe. Composite structure owe their lightweight characteristics to the designer freedom to place the load carrying material only where it is required.This is achieved by using lightweight, high-strength fibres embedded in a design matrix which can be oriented during the manufacturing process to suit the designers requirements.

Facilities

• ASMS
• System Design and Evaluation Facility
• Computing Center
• Iron Bird
• LCA Hangar
• Lightning Test Facility
• Virtual Reality
• Wind Tunnel Testing Facility

Software development

ADA has established advanced state of the art computing centre with several powerful equipments and software. ADA has developed specialised software in the fields of computer-aided design (CAD), computer-aided engineering (CAE), computer-aided manufacturing (CAM), avionics, systems, independent validation and verification, flight simulation. The spin-off benefits of the research and development is realised with help of commercial partnership with leading multi-national companies such as Boeing, Airbus, IBM, Dassault Systèmes, Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC). The following are some of the software developed for the LCA-Tejas development programme.

• Autolay
• CADTRANS
• FINESSE
• FINEGRAF
• GITA
• PRANA

Successful flights

By 26 April 2012, LCA Tejas has completed 1839 Test Flights successfully.

By 17 August 2015, LCA Tejas has completed 2977 Test Flights successfully.

External links

• ADA website