State-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited on Thursday successfully test fired a Smart Anti Airfield Weapon (SAAW) from the Hawk-i aircraft off the coast of Odisha. The aircraft flown by HAL test pilots Wing Commander (Retd) P Awasthi and Wg Cdr (Retd) M Patel executed the weapon release in a text book manner and all mission objectives were met.
The indigenous stand-off weapon, developed by Defence Research and Development Organisation's Research Centre Imarat (RCI), is the first smart weapon fired from an Indian Hawk-Mk132, the HAL said in a statement. The telemetry and tracking systems captured all the mission events confirming the success of the trials.
"The Company owned Hawk-i platform is being extensively used for certification of systems and weapons developed indigenously by DRDO and CSIR labs," R Madhavan, CMD, HAL, said. Arup Chatterjee, Director, Engineering and Research and Development, HAL said HAL is indigenously enhancing the training and combat capability of Hawk-i.
The HAL said it was in discussions with Indian Armed Forces for integration of various weapons on Hawk platform.
The SAAW is an aircraft launched, advanced, precision strike weapon of 125 kg category used to attack and destroy enemy airfield assets such as radars, bunkers, taxi tracks, runway within a range of 100 km, according to TOI reports.