HAL HJT-36 Sitara Intermediate Jet Trainer (IJT)

[overscan (PaulMM)]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1479037903330164738

View: https://twitter.com/HALHQBLR/status/1479037903330164738/


Trainers are often functional not beautiful but this was hit with the ugly stick.

 

[AeroFranz]

The intakes in particular look like an afterthought.

 

[helmutkohl]

not gonna lie. a lot of HAL's aircraft designs are not going to win any best looking award
btw i added some tags, hope you dont mind.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Take off performance must be impressive..... ......an aircraft that ugly must strongly repel the ground!

twitter comment by Jon Lake.

 

[TMA1]

It is a cute little flyer. I like it. If you want to call any trainer ugly look at the old soviet L-29!

Edit: autocorrect incorrectly autocorrected.

 

[Arjen]

I guess it depends on the angle/colour scheme. I've seen worse. L-29 (Czecho-Slovak) from wiki, HJT-36 from airliners.net.

 

[Hood]

That is some stepped tandem cockpit! Think they might have over-cooked it a little. No excuse for the instructor not to see everything.

 

[UpForce]

Apparently in development for about two decades already; requirements can change quite a bit meanwhile. So can available technologies. One could of course counter that it has taken a similar amount of time to seek and field a replacement for the T-38 but that program, at least, materialized in one way or another several viable candidates in far less time. Slightly curious about the effort as a whole. Indian aerospace projects, while sometimes tardy, can also be very frugal in ways that wouldn't necessarily occur to other organizations.

 

[robunos]

The intakes in particular look like an afterthought.

Showing it's HJT-16 Kiran ancestry . . .

HAL HJT-16 Kiran - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

image source :- https://www.bharat-rakshak.com/IAF/Galleries/20462-3/Kiran13.jpg

cheers,
Robin.

 

[riggerrob]

The intakes in particular look like an afterthought.

Similarly the horizontal tail looks like it was an afterthought long after the rest of the airframe was completed.
Was it designed by a committee?
Seriously, mounting the horizontal tail that far aft reduces the amount that it masks the rudder during spins.