French Rafale pilots Impresed by Tejas

( TNN, Idrw ) : The French kiss is legendary. Now, what about an Indo-French one? It must be a blast — Indian spiritual sense and bare French passion. India’s ace LCA pilot George Joseph and French pilots De L’Air, Plu Vinjae and others shared some fantastic bonhomie at the flight operations centre at Yelahanka air base on Friday. Engaged in intense conversation, India’s LCA pilot and the French pilots exchanged notes on the LCA, Su-30, Rafale, F-18 and the art of flying.
The French pilots, fascinated by the LCA, inquired about how India’s indigenous aircraft project was coming along. While the French pilots said they were mighty impressed by the light and compact aircraft, George explained how the LCA coasted through almost 1,500 flights, tackling in its wake a whole lot of technical issues typical of any developing aircraft. “The test flights have been a challenge. We went through many new developments. The software was continually upgraded and we arrived even to the fly-by-wire system. We’ve just received certification,” George explained to the attentive French pilots.
One of the French pilots remarked: “I’ve been seeing the LCA fly for the past two days. It looks a very good aircraft to me. It has good flight abilities and I get the feeling it’s doing well.” One other pilot had just finished a good deal of research on the LCA, having gone to the aircraft and examined it closely.
Another French pilot said: “Cockpit comfort will be an important factor for a pilot to say how the aircraft is. Weaponization is another. For an aircraft that’s coming up, its very good. But yes, ultimately flying the aircraft will tell us how good it is.”
Then the LCA pilot and his French counterparts exchanged notes on how the Su-30 operated. The French were keen to know about the Sukhoi, given that it is the mainstay of the IAF and probably the deadliest air superiority fighter in the world. All of then congratulated each other for the flight displays and signed off, hoping to meet again.