New Delhi, April 28: Tejas, the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) has successfully fired Derby Air-to-Air Beyond Visual Range Missile from the Goa Coast on Friday. The launch aims 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.

According to an official press release, the missile was launched from LCA Tejas piloted by Wg Cdr Siddharth Singh on April 27, 2018, after an exhaustive study of the missile separation characteristics and plume envelope. LCA Tejas has been designed & developed by DRDO’s autonomous society – Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA).

Integration of Derby, a BVR class missile is one of the major objectives of Final Operational Clearance (FOC) of LCA Tejas. 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 were carried out by ADA and it’s National Flight Test Centre (NFTC) officials Cmde JA Maolankar and GpCapt A Kabadwal, IAF, DG(AQA), HAL &  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.

Raksha Mantri Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman has complimented DRDO and other agencies involved in making LCA Tejas fighter jet, a world-class aircraft platform. Chairman DRDO & 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.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 28, 2018 01:44 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).