Air-to-Air Missile Test Likely From Today

The Indian Air Force (IAF) is scheduled to carry out a series of tests of Russia made air-to-air short range missile from a defence base off the Odisha coast from Thursday. DRDO will provide all logistic supports for the air defence exercise.

Defence sources said the missiles integrated to be fired from fighter aircrafts would target the tow bodies released from Pilotless Target Aircraft (PTA), which will be flown from the launching complex-II of the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur-on-sea, about 15 km from Balasore.

Sources told this paper that the non-DRDO Russian missile will be fired from Sukhoi and MIG-29 fighter aircrafts. The tests would be conducted on Thursday, Saturday and Monday.

After taking off from the Kalaikunda air base near Kharagpur in West Bengal, the aircrafts would target the tow body over Bay of Bengal.  

These air-to-air missiles were procured by India from Russia several years back for the use by Air Force to give air protection to Indian cities.

The mission is crucial for the IAF as last year an Air Force troupe had to wind up their air defence exercise at the test facility here as at least three trials of the five attempts made to engage aerial targets by a Russian surface-to-air missile (SAM) failed successively.

The trials were carried out in between April 22 and April 29 last year to engage PTA Lakshya by Russian OSA-AK Missile.

indianexpress