Smart Anti-Airfield Weapon SAAW: In yet another milestone, India’s apex defence research organisation, DRDO, successfully conducted captive and release trial of indigenously developed Smart Anti-Airfield Weapon (SAAW) from Hawk-I of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) off the Odisha coast on Thursday.
The smart weapon was successfully test-fired from Indian Hawk-Mk132 of India’s state owned aerospace major HAL.
This was the 9th successful mission of SAAW conducted by DRDO till now. It was a text book launch, which met all mission objectives.
The telemetry and tracking systems installed at Interim Test Range (ITR), Balasore captured all the mission events, said the defence ministry.
“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 CSIR labs” said R Madhavan, CMD, HAL.
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The aircraft flown by HAL test pilots Wing Commander P Awasthi (retd) and Wing Commander M Patel (retd) executed the weapon release in a text book manner and all mission objectives were met.
IAF tests smart anti airfield weapon at Chandan airfield. (File)
DRDO smart anti-airfield weapon
The SAAW is an aircraft launched, advanced, precision strike weapon of 125 Kilogram category used to attack and destroy enemy airfield assets such as radars, bunkers, taxi tracks, runways within a range of 100 kilometers.
SAAW is indigenously designed and developed by DRDO’s Research Centre Imarat (RCI) Hyderabad.
The high precision guided bomb is light weight as compared to weapon system of the same class. The weapon was earlier successfully test-fired from Jaguar aircraft.
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HAL’s Hawk-I trainer
The Hawk-i is HAL’s internally funded program offering the Indian Armed Forces an upgrade and combat capability for the Hawk, transforming it into an Advanced Jet Trainer providing training on sensors and weapons in peacetime and into a potent combat platform during conflict.
Arup Chatterjee, Director of Engineering and R&D at HAL said the defence PSU is indigenously enhancing the training and combat capability of Hawk-i.
“HAL is in discussions with Indian Armed Forces for integration of various weapons on Hawk platform,” Chatterjee added.
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