The Light Combat Helicopter (LCH) is an indigenous attack helicopter designed and manufactured by HAL. The need for an attack helicopter was felt at the time of the Kargil war in 1999. The Russian made Mi-35 attack helicopters could not operate effectively at such high altitude due to the strain that their engines faced owing to the high altitude. The HAL LCH is the only attack helicopter in the world that is capable to operate at Siachen Glacier.
History
The LCH programme was started in 2006. The LCH is largely based on the ALH Dhruv helicopter. This significantly reduced the cost of the programme. The first prototype [technology demonstrator 1 (TD1)] carried out its maiden flight in Bengaluru in March 2010. The second prototype was considerably lighter in weight and was fitted with armaments and was unveiled at the Aero India 2011. In early 2015 numerous cold-weather tests were conducted in Leh including engine start-up at temperatures as low as -18 degree C. It was during these tests that the LCH became the first attack helicopter to operate at the Siachen glacier at altitudes ranging from 13000 to 15800 ft. The aircraft also successfully completed its hot weather trials at Jodhpur with the aircraft exposed to temperatures ranging from 39-42 degree C. On 17 January 2019, LCH completed weapons trials with the successful firing of Mistral-2 air-to-air missile at a flying target.
The Indian Air Force (IAF) and the Indian Army are both set to get the indigenous Light Combat Helicopters from the state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), pending contract finalization of 15 Limited Series Production (LSP) of LCH. HAL has received Letter of Intent (LoI) for 5 LCH for IAF and 5 for the Indian Army. The company has produced and signalled out 3 LSP Light Combat Helicopters for the IAF. The same is going to be subjected to customer acceptance and training shortly. In the current year, HAL is producing 4 LCH for the Army and 2 for IAF. The remaining 6 LCH will be produced next year.
IAF and the Indian Army together have a requirement of around 160 LCHs – in this 65 will be for IAF and the balance for the Army. In 2020, the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) had put its stamp of approval over the proposal for an initial batch of 15 LCHs.
Technical Parameters
Max. take-off Weight : 5800 Kg
Max. speed : 268 Kmph
Range : 550 Km
Service Ceiling : 6.5 km(21325 ft)
Climb rate : 12 m/s
Power Plant
SHAKTI engine (2 no.)
Power is 1032 kW
Weapons and armaments
The LCH is fitted with an M261 20mm cannon on Nexter THL-20 turret which is integrated with the helmet-mounted display. LCH has four hard points. LCH can be equipped with Helina anti-tank guided missile and 70mm Thales rocket pod. The air-to-air MBDA Mistral missile can be equipped on the LCA.
Cockpit and Avionics
The LCH has a glass cockpit and has the capacity to accommodate the pilot and the co-pilot in a tandem configuration. The cockpit has multifunction displays and an integrated avionics display system (IADS)*
The LCH is protected by an electronic warfare suite which comprises various defensive elements to guard against several different threats, these include a radar warning receiver (RWR), laser warning receiver (LWR) and a missile approach warning (MAW) system.
Conclusion
Although the LCH carries less payload and the cockpit is less protected than the battle-proven Apache helicopters, the Indian Air force chose the LCH due to its special capability to operate at high altitudes. The LCH incorporates a number of stealth features, Armour protection, Night attack capability and crashworthy landing gear for better survivability. It's not the best, but it's better than most attack helicopters for high altitude operations which was the specific need of our armed forces.
Term breakdown-
1. HAL – Hindustan Aeronautics Limited.
2. Integrated Architecture Display System (IADS) - The earlier system was a conventional cockpit in that system had many sensor indicators for different signals. it was difficult to monitor all indicators at a time for the pilots hence the Integrated Architecture and Display System (IADS) replace the conventional cockpit on the helicopter. IADS is built around the digital Display and Mission Computer (DMC) and it acquires helicopter data from onboard sensors in various formats, converts them to digital format for display on the MFDs and CDUs.
3. Helina ATGM- The HELINA missile is a third-generation anti-tank weapon with an infra-red seeker, fire-and-forget features.
4. Mistral missile- You can check out this website to know more - https://www.mbda-systems.com/product/mistral-atam/
5. Helmet mounted display- Helmet-mounted display (HMD) is a device used in aircraft to project information to the pilot's eyes. Its scope is similar to that of head-up displays (HUD). It increases the situational awareness of the pilot.
😍😍