Ratan Tata set for take-off aboard F-16

NEW DELHI: On a high ever since clinching the Corus deal last month, Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata will literally flirt with heights when he flies the multi-role combat aircraft F-16, for which he has undergone medical test.

Tata, 69, will undertake the feat during the Bangalore air show, in which the makers of F-16, US-based aerospace major Lockheed Martin, will participate.

"Tata has undergone medical check-up, briefing and ground training," a source said ahead of the flight scheduled in the afternoon of February 8 that would make Tata the oldest Indian to fly the American-made aircraft.

When contacted, a Tata Group official confirmed this.

Tata, who holds a pilot's licence, had said the thought of the F-16 flight excites him very much.

Lockheed is lobbying hard to sell 128 F-16's to the Indian Air Force.

The Tatas are not new to aviation. Ratan Tata's predecessor JRD Tata is celebrated as father of India's civil aviation. JRD Tata had launched Tata Airlines in 1932, which was nationalised in 1953 and rechristened Air-India.

Though Tata Group now holds under 10 per cent stake in no-frills carrier SpiceJet, Ratan Tata has ruled out plans to enter the civil aviation space.

Ratan Tata himself flies the Falcon 200 owned by group company Indian Hotels.

Last year, President APJ Abdul Kalam became the first commander-in-chief of the armed forces to undertake a historic 30 minute sortie on IAF's Sukhoi-30 MKI.

In 2003, then Defence Minister George Fernandes had flown the Sukhoi as well the MIG-21.