HAL flies upgraded Mirage-2000 with new weapons, sensors

India's military plane maker Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd on Friday said it has flown an upgraded Mirage-2000 aircraft with India specific weapons, sensors and electronic warfare systems. The plane with an upgraded mission computer meets the final operational clearance (FOC) requirements.

"We have done it again on time. What it proves is HAL's capability of mid-life upgrade of platforms to overcome obsolescence issues, enhance the reliability and maintainability of these aircraft. The introduction of state of the art facility created for this project ensures the timely upgradation of the Mirage fleet," said T Suvarna Raju, CMD, HAL in a statement. The FOC design was implemented on an Initial Operational Configured (IOC) aircraft which was received at HAL only about eight months ago.

The initial operation configuration was designed by the Dassault and Thales of France. HAL took up the FOC design and development activities. The FOC configuration covers the integration of Indian specific weapons, sensors and EW system. This FOC upgrade on Mirage 2000 gives additional capability of air to ground weapon, training, helmet mounted display etc. The system having a unique feature of integrating different types of data bus for IOC and FOC configuration is achieved without any degradation. The total design and development was done by HAL which includes mission computer hardware, OFP software, system design, aircraft modification etc. The Company is responsible for the IOC and FOC upgrade of the Mirage fleet of IAF.

The first flight of 45 minutes was piloted by Gp. Capt C. Subramaniam (Retd.), Chief Test Pilot of HAL from the front cockpit and Wg. Cdr Haldikar of ASTE, IAF in the rear cockpit. Gp. Capt. A. Mishra of IAF acted as the test director, it said.