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President Droupadi Murmu will undertake a sortie in the indigenously developed Light Combat Helicopter (LCH) Prachand at the Air Force Station in Jaisalmer on Friday morning during her visit to Rajasthan. As the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, Murmu will take the sortie in the LCH Prachand before proceeding to other engagements later in the day, according to a Defence Ministry statement.
The LCH Prachand is India’s first indigenously designed and developed combat helicopter, built by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited. Designed for operations across varied terrain, from deserts to high-altitude regions, the helicopter can operate at altitudes above 5,000 metres, making it suitable for deployment along mountainous borders.
Equipped with advanced avionics, night-attack capability, and a range of weapons, including air-to-ground and air-to-air missiles, rockets, and a 20 mm gun, the platform is expected to strengthen the operational capabilities of the Indian Air Force.
Rajnath Singh had earlier flown in the Prachand during the helicopter’s formal induction into the IAF at Jodhpur in October 2022.
Later in the evening, the president will attend the IAF’s large-scale firepower demonstration, ‘Vayu Shakti’, at the Pokhran Field Firing Range, located near the India–Pakistan border.
The event follows a full dress rehearsal on February 24 that featured coordinated day-to-dusk-to-night operations in a near-realistic combat scenario. During the rehearsal, frontline fighter jets, transport aircraft and helicopters carried out simulated strikes on designated targets. Sukhoi Su-30MKI aircraft struck enemy runways and positions, MiG-29 jets targeted a simulated convoy of tanks, and the Akash missile system engaged aerial threats. A C-130J Super Hercules conducted a night landing, while an Airbus C295 carried out landing operations. Prachand and Boeing AH-64 Apache helicopters, along with SEPECAT Jaguar jets, also participated.
Murmu’s sortie in the LCH adds to a series of engagements with frontline military platforms. In October last year, she flew a Dassault Rafale from the Air Force Station in Ambala, becoming the first Indian president to fly two different IAF fighter aircraft.
Earlier, in April 2023, she undertook a sortie in a Sukhoi-30 MKI fighter aircraft from the Air Force Station in Tezpur, flying for about 30 minutes over the Brahmaputra and Tezpur valley with views of the Himalayas.
Team BharatShakti
