Tejas, the home-grown light combat aircraft, has tested much of its night flying capabilities and systems and crossed a significant milestone on its way to final operational clearance, a DRDO release said.

A second phase of night evaluation is to be held in a couple of months.

“Success of the current phase of trials augurs well for achieving night attack capability for Tejas in the near future,” the release said.

The LSP-5 version of the world's smallest fighter was flown with night flying devices from the HAL airport on Tuesday night. Night flights are the true test of a fighter as it mostly works at night during battles, a spokesman said.

Flying, targeting and attacking in the dark is a main condition for getting the final operational clearance.

Pilots from the eventual user agency, the IAF, made six sorties.

The Israeli-made MMR (multi-modal radar) and the litening pod, an imaging sensor that gives the pilot terrain pictures during day and night, were integrated with the aircraft's weapon system.

“Preliminary results indicate that the integrated system performed very well meeting the requirements of night operations. With the conclusion of the first phase of night evaluations, the mood is upbeat in Team Tejas comprising specialists from ADA, HAL, IAF, NAL, (defence labs of) ADE, CEMILAC and the DGAQA.

Related Topics