Source: Atul Chandra Source: Atul Chandra Source: Atul Chandra Source: Atul Chandra Work on CATS started in the second half of 2018 and began in earnest in late 2019-early 2020, says HAL test pilot Group Captain H.V. Thakur (Retd). He adds that preliminary design work has been completed. Thakur says that the Tejas twin-seat trainer is being optimised as part of a manned-unmanned teaming concept, as this variant still has some growth potential. “Work is now being done to define the requirements for a future cockpit for the type capable of handling the workload,” Thakur says. As part of CATS, future variants of the Tejas Mk-1A will act as a ‘Mothership for Air teaming eXploitation’ (MAX) and will be modified with additional command and control interfaces for this purpose.