Dy Air Chief visits DRDO, HAL, TASL in Hyd, lauds indigenisation efforts

Deputy Chief of Air Staff Air Marshal Ashutosh Dixit visited the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and TATA Advanced Systems Limited (TASL) in Telangana's Hyderabad in a two-day visit from July 23-24, an Indian Air Force (IAF) statement said on Wednesday.

During his visit, the Deputy Air Chief interacted with the Chief Executive of the Centre for Military Airworthiness and Certification (CEMILAC) APVS Prasad, the Director General of Missiles and Strategic Systems (MSS) U Raja Babu, and the team of Airbus and TASL.

During his interaction with the officials, Air Marshal Dixit lauded the indigenization efforts towards self-reliance by several organisations.

The highlights of the Deputy Chief's visit included granting production clearance for ASTRA missiles at the Defence Research and Development Laboratory (DRDL), reviewing avionics indigenization at HAL, and inspecting the C-295 aircraft production line at TASL.

ASTRA is a Beyond Visual Range (BVR) class of Air-to-Air Missile (AAM) system designed to be mounted on fighter aircraft. The missile is designed to engage and destroy highly manoeuvrable supersonic aircraft.

On July 24, DRDO successfully flight-tested Phase II of the Ballistic Missile Defence System. The Target Missile was launched from LC-IV Dhamra, mimicking an adversary Ballistic Missile, which was detected by weapon system radars deployed on land and sea and activated the AD Interceptor system.

The Phase-II AD Endo-atmospheric missile was launched from LC-III at the Integrated Test Range (ITR), Chandipur, Odisha.