Indian Air Force Tests Derby Air-to-air Beyond Visual Range Missile from Tejas

The Indian Air Force has test fired an Israeli Derby Air-to-Air Beyond Visual Range (BVR) Missile from its domestically grown Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), Tejas 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 from the firing range off the Goa coast. LCA Tejas has been designed & developed by DRDO’s autonomous society – Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA), the Indian MoD said in a statement Sunday.

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.

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.