HAWK-I AIRCRAFT TEST-FIRES DRDO’S SMART WEAPON

Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) on Thursday announced that a Hawk-i aircraft successfully fired a Smart Anti-airfield Weapon (SAAW) for the first time off the coast of Odisha, in what is being seen as a significant boost to an upgrade programme for the Hawk advanced jet trainer operated by the Indian Air Force and the Indian Navy.

The SAAW is a precision strike weapon that can be used to target enemy airfield assets such as radars, bunkers, taxi tracks and runways. Indigenously developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation’s research centre Imarat, the weapon has a range of 100 km. It was test-fired from the IAF’S Jaguar fighter planes.

It is the first smart weapon to be fired from an Indian Hawk Mk132 trainer aircraft. “HAL has been focusing on the Atmanirbhar Bharat campaign. The company-owned Hawk-i platform is being extensively used for certification of systems and weapons developed indigenously by DRDO and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research labs,” HAL chairman R Madhavan said. The plane was flown by HAL test pilots Wing Commanders (retd) P Awasthi and M Patel.

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