The indigenously developed LCA (Light Combat Aircraft) Tejas has successfully fired Derby an air-to-air BVR (Beyond Visual Range) missile off the Goa coast.
- It demonstrated its overall capability as an effective combat jet, and inched closer to receive final operational clearance.
- Tejas was earlier given clearance for deployment of armaments and other missiles.
Key Facts
- Tejas has now successfully completed a series of captive flight trials to clear the Derby for full operational capability in the entire final operational clearance (FOC) envelope.
- The aircraft was tracked by two other Tejas aircraft in close formation to capture the firing event in the specially instrumented high-speed cameras for detailed analysis.
- The entire planning, practice and final firing was carried out by DRDO's autonomous society – Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) and its National Flight Test Centre (NFTC).
- Tejas has qualified for the armaments and missile release related trials.
- The Indian Air Force (IAF) had ordered 40 Tejas Mark-1 version and a request for proposal (RFP) was issued to HAL by the IAF in December for procurement of another batch of 83 Tejas at a cost of around Rs 50,000 crore.
- IAF tested its war-waging capabilities in a possible two-front scenario involving Pakistan and China during Gagan Shakti 2018.
- During the Gagan Shakti 2018 exercise, eight Tejas jets were deployed.
- The IAF has already committed to buying at least 123 Tejas fighters for Rs 75,000 crore from the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL).
Features of Derby BVR missile
- It is a short to medium range BVR Air-to-Air missile.
- It is developed jointly by Israeli armament development agency Rafael and Israel Aircraft Industries MBT has a maximum effective range of about 50 km.
- Launch weight – 118 kg
- Length – 3.8 metres
- Wingspan – 64 cm
- Diameter – 16 cm
- It is an active radar air-to-air missile for the fighter aircraft and has the capability to be launched at a target day or night and in all weather conditions.
- It has look-down/shoot-down capability, fire and forget mode and an advanced ECCM tailored to the customer's operational requirements.
- It is a dual-use missile (air-to-air and surface-to-air).
- The missile's light weight allows it to be adapted to various modern fighter aircraft.
