Indian Air Force (IAF) Chief, Air Chief Marshal Rakesh KumarSingh Bhadauria, on Thursday flew a sortie in the under development HTT-40trainer aircraft.

"ACM RKS Bhadauria, CAS flew HTT40, tested its flyingcapabilities for one hour. First serving Air Chief to fly in prototype as Chiefof Air Force," IAF said in a tweet.

It is to be noted that HAL is still developing this traineraircraft. IAF chief Bhadauria has always supported the indigenous traineraircraft project and Bhadauria had assured full support to this project when hewas the deputy chief of air staff.

The IAF chief flew in the trainer aircraft for around 40minutes and tested the HTT-40 on several parameters. It is learnt that HTT-40will replace HPT32 after its formal induction in the IAF. Air Chief MarshalBhadauria has now become the first IAF chief to fly in an under developmentaircraft. The HTT-40 is an all-metal tandem seat aircraft powered by a 1,100 hp(820 kW) turboprop engine. In 2012, HAL had announced that it would build 106HTT-40 trainer aircraft but the future of aircraft plunged in doubt after theIAF ordered 75 Pilatus PC-7 Mk IIs to work as trainer aircraft.But in 2015, itwas reported that 68 HTT-40 trainers had been selected by Ministry of Defenceto function as trainer aircraft. The first prototype of HTT40 was rolled out byHAL on February 2, 2016. The HTT40 made its first public introduction flight onJune 17, 2016 and on May 19, 2017, the second prototype completed its maidenflight.

On September 6, 2019, HTT- 40 completed a five spin trialsuccessfully and the trainer aircraft successfully completed a six spin trialon September 7, 2019.

ANI reported that the IAF would order a sizeable number ofthese planes from the HAL for its training fleet which is currently using theSwiss Pilatus planes. Notably, the Swiss aircraft firm has been banned by theCentre for its alleged involvement in corrupt practices and this is the reasonwhy the future of this indigenous aircraft seems bright.