Last Phase Trials of Tejas Successful

The Light Combat Aircraft, Tejas, conducted its last phase of flight trials by successfully test-firing air-to-air close combat missile, R-73 on 30 November 2010 at Goa. R-73 missile was test fired from the Limited Series Production (LSP) aircraft 4. The LSP-4 had its first successful flight in June this year and the IOC is scheduled towards the end of 2010. The current trials were conducted with an objective of clearing the firing envelope of the missile from the Tejas.

The flight test demonstrated user requirement like- 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 etc.

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.