HAL Removes Hanuman Picture From HLFT-42 Aircraft at Aero India 2023

Bengaluru:  The Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) removed the picture of Lord Hanuman from the tail of the HLFT-42 aircraft model displayed at the biennial Aero India air show in Bengaluru.

On Monday HAL unveiled a scale model of the Hindustan Lead in Fighter trainer (HLFT-42), which had a picture of Lord Hanuman on its vertical fin.

HAL sources stated that HLFT-42 is the successor of HAL Marut, the first Indigenous trainer aircraft. Marut is the other name for Wind god or Pawan Dev. Lord Hanuman is also known as Pawan Putra or the son of the Wind God. So, this aircraft of HAL had a picture of Lord Hanuman on its vertical fin.

But HAL authorities did not give the reason for which Lord Hanuman’s picture was removed from the HLFT-42.

HLFT-42 is a next-generation, supersonic trainer that will play a critical role in modern combat aircraft training. It is equipped with state-of-the-art avionics like Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA), Electronic Warfare (EW) Suite, Infrared Search and Track (IRST) with Fly by Wire control (FBW) systems.