Bangalore: The first prototype of Saras, India's home-grown civilian aircraft, will make its second test-flight on June 7 at the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) airport, a top Indian Air Force (IAF) official said today (June 4, 2004).

"The second test-flight of Saras will be on Monday (June 7)," IAF's Aircraft and Systems Testing Establishment (ASTE) Commandant Air Commodore Anil Chopra told reporters.

Saras, designed and developed by Bangalore-based National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL), was first flown on May 29 by ASTE Chief Test Pilot Sqdn Ldr K K Venugopal and his team.

The prototype, powered by two Canadian Pratt and Whitney engines, flew for about 20 minutes over the Bangalore skies at a speed of 138 nautical miles and reached an altitude of about 8,000 feet.

"The aircraft carried about 350 sensors on board. The time lag of over a week for the second flight is due to the detailed analysis which had to be undertaken by our engineers and pilots," Chopra said.

NAL, a CSIR lab, began work on the 14-seater Saras, named after the Indian crane, in 1991 but the Rs 139 crore project hit air pockets due to the denial of critical components following US sanctions imposed in the wake of the Pokhran nuclear blasts in 1998. It was revived in 2001 with a cost escalation of about 20 per cent.