Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), public sector defence aerospace major, which introduced and flew its upgraded Hawk-i at Aero India 2017.

Hawk-i is upgraded aircraft and is equipped with indigenous mission computer in dual redundant configuration, embedded virtual training system (EVTS), Softnet Radio and Cockpit Human Machine Interface (HMI).

On Friday, T Suvarna Raju, Chairman and Managing Director (CMD), HAL, flew it.

Speaking after the flight, Raju described it as life-time experience and said upgrade of Hawk aircraft has been taken up by HAL indigenously and he had a first-hand experience of the upgraded systems. The aircraft was piloted by Wg Cdr Pratyush Awasti.