Preparing for the Initial Operational Clearance (IOC), the Light Combat Aircraft, ‘Tejas,' on Tuesday conducted its last phase of flight trials by successfully test-firing air-to-air close combat missile at Goa.
One of the main objectives of the current phase of trials was clearing the firing envelope of the missile from the Tejas. The test firing of R-73 missile was done from the Limited Series Production (LSP) aircraft 4, the Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) announced here. The LSP-4 had its first successful flight in June this year and the IOC is scheduled towards the end of 2010.
The R-73 missile is integrated with the on-board Digital Stores Management System and Open Architecture Mission and Display Computer. The missile selection is performed from the high resolution multi-function display pages integrated with the state-of-the-art on-board avionics. All this equipment forms the IOC standard of Avionics, the DRDO said.
The flight test demonstrated user requirement including: safe separation of the missile from the test aircraft; no missile plume effect on the engine operation; avionics and weapon system functionality and safety interlocks; aircraft handling quality assessment during missile release; and effect of missile plume on the composite structure.
More firings of the missile are planned during the current week leading to CCM firing envelope clearance for the Tejas. The test plane was accompanied by a chase Tejas.
