Tejas fires Derby missile in Jamnagar
Bengaluru, Feb 05: Continuing with its successful stride of flight trails in 2016, India's Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas achieved a major milestone on Friday.
One of the limited series production (LSP) platforms fired a Beyond Visual Range Air-to-Air Missile (BVRAAM) missile Derby for the first time.
According to sources associated with the project, the LSP-7 from Tejas flightline fired the missile in Jamnagar as part of its scheduled weapon trials. These weapon trials are part of the Final Operational Clearance (FOC) mandate.
Sources confirmed to OneIndia that LSP-7 fired the BVRAAM Derby missile on a BNG (Ballistic Non Guided) mode.
It
was
the
169th
flight
of
LSP-7
and
was
piloted
by
Group
Capt
Rangachari
of
National
Flight
Test
Centre.
Tejas
is
also
scheduled
to
fire
a
Close
Combat
Missile
(CCM)
Python-5
missile
as
part
of
the
FOC
trails.
The LSP-7 along with LSP-4 were part of Indian flying assets at the just-concluded Bahrain International Air Show (BIAS-2016)
As
reported
earlier,
the
current
trials
are
aimed
at
validating
the
accuracy
of
the
missile.
Apart
from
Python
and
Derby,
Tejas
has
in
weapon
menu
Russian-made
CCM
R-73,
laser-guided
bombs
(LGB)
Griffin
and
Paveway
and
Russian-made
gun
Gsh-23.
"It's a great achievement. We are awaiting the test results. The next schedule will be decided based on our analysis. We are awaiting the data," an official attached to the weapon trials programme said.
OneIndia News