Table of Contents

Preface; First Flight; The Long Road to First Flight; Change of Guard; Early Life & My Career in the IAF; The Aeronautical Development Agency; Quadruplex Digital Fly-by-Wire & the Glass Cockpit; In Flight Simulation & Roll Out of TD-1; Engine Ground Run, Pokharan Blasts, US Sanctions & RTS Problems; The Iron Bird & Taxi Tests; The Patna Air Crash & Preparations for First Flight; Honours & Awards, Aero India 2001 & Completion of the First Block of Flights; Delay in the First Flight of TD-2 & Negotiations with Foreign Companies; Flutter, the Naming Ceremony, Supersonic Flight & Retirement; Postscript; Index.

About the Author

Air Marshal Philip Rajkumar was born in 1941, graduated with a science degree from Central College, Bangalore and was commissioned in the Flying Branch of the Indian Air Force in 1962. After specializing as an experimental test pilot in 1972, he spent the next three decades participating in numerous indigenous aeronautical development projects both as a test pilot and programme manager. He retired in 2003 as the Director, Aeronautical Development Agency after spending his last nine years of service working in the LCA project.