Yet another milestone for LCA Tejas towards certification for final operational clearance

Tejas, the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) successfully fired Derby Air-to-Air Beyond Visual Range Missile to expand the firing envelope as well as to demonstrate safe operation of the aircraft during missile plume ingestion into the aircraft engine under worst case scenarios. The missile was launched from LCA Tejas piloted by Wing Cdr Siddharth Singh on 27 April 2018 from the firing range off the Goa coast after an exhaustive study of the missile separation characteristics and plume envelope.

Integration of Derby, a BVR class missile is one of the major objectives of Final Operational Clearance (FOC) of LCA Tejas.

LCA Tejas has been designed and developed by Defence Research and Development Organisation's (DRDO) autonomous society – Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA).

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 and comparison with the simulation model for validation. The entire planning, practice sorties and final firing was carried out by ADA and it’s National Flight Test Centre (NFTC) officials Cmde JA Maolankar and GpCapt A Kabadwal, IAF, DG(AQA), HAL and INS HANSA.

Based on the successful integration and demonstration, Regional Centre for Military Airworthiness (RCMA), a unit of DRDO has cleared the series production aircraft of Squadron 45, to be equipped with Derby operational capability. LCA Tejas has successfully completed a series of captive flight trials to clear Derby for the full operational capability in the entire FOC envelope. In the past, Tejas has qualified for the armaments and missile release related trials.

Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman complimented DRDO and other agencies involved in making LCA Tejas fighter jet, a world class aircraft platform.    

Chairman DRDO and Secretary Department of Defence R&D Dr. S Christopher, congratulated and said that with this firing, LCA Tejas achieved another major milestone towards FOC certification.