Hindustan Aeronautics Limited’s flagship jet training aircraft, which has been renamed ‘Yashas’ after extensive modifications to HJT-36, has been relaunched.

HAL Chairman DK Sunil is a very capable aircraft and it will be a good replacement for the Kiran MK II.
Sunil told the news agency ANI that improvements in HJT-36 include improved radar and spin characteristic.

“The HJT-36 was started in 2000. It flew, did a lot of certification tests but unfortunately, there was an incident after which we had to rework the design and the fuselage was extended. The radar was improved and the spin characteristic, which was a problem, has been fixed and we have also improved the cockpit,” the chairman said.

“We have made it a full glass cockpit, it is voice-enabled, you can give commands so it is a modern cockpit and this aircraft has now got a new avatar. So we said let us give it a new name and we held a competition among our engineers. They named it Yashas, so hopefully it will have a very good future,” he added.

The HAL Chairman said the Indian Air Force has shown its interest in the aircraft and they have sought some planes on lease.

“So we will lease them and they will start using it in various training. It is a very capable aircraft today. It will be a good replacement for Kiran MK II,” he said.

The “spin” of an aircraft refers the aircraft stalling and spinning across its vertical axis, leading to the aircraft following a downward spiral. The aircraft enters a spiral due to there being more drag under one wing of the plane than the other, leading to an imbalance. There are multiple reasons an aircraft could enter spin, and pilots intentionally enter spin if required.

Sanjeev Kumar, Secretary (DP) unveiled the new name in the presence of DK Sunil, and senior officers at the ongoing Aero India 2025 on Monday.

“The large-scale changes to the baseline intermediate training platform have led to significant upheaval in its capabilities and hence provided an opportunity for a new name to be given in accordance with the aircraft’s continued relevance as a training system for modern military aviation. In light of this, HJT-36 is named Yashas,” Sunil said.

For induction into service, the aircraft was recently upgraded with state-of-the-art avionics and an ultra-modern cockpit. These will enhance training effectiveness and operational efficiency, whilst providing weight reduction and overcoming obsolescence of imported equipment with Indian LRUs.
Yashas is capable of Stage II pilot training, counter insurgency and counter surface force operations, armament training, aerobatics etc. It is powered by a FADEC-controlled AL55I Jet engine, providing a best-in-class thrust-to-weight ratio, optimised thrust management and reliability.
The Stepped-up Rear cockpit with a Drooped Nose provides excellent all-around Vision and Enhanced situational awareness with State-of-the-Art Glass Cockpit with MFDs and HUD. The capabilities of HJT-36 are stall and spin, aerobatics, armament carriage up to 1000kg, single-point ground refuelling and refuelling.