Hyderabad: DRDO has 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 January 21.

The smart weapon was successfully test fired from Indian Hawk-Mk132 of HAL. This was the ninth successful mission of SAAW conducted by DRDO.

“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.

The aircraft flown by HAL test pilots Wg Cdr P Awasthi  (Retd) and Wg Cdr M Patel (Retd) executed the weapon release in a text book manner and all mission objectives were met. The telemetry and tracking systems captured all the mission events confirming the success of the trials.

Arup Chatterjee, Director, Engineering and R&D, HAL, said HAL is indigenously enhancing the training and combat capability of Hawk-i. It is in discussions with the Indian Armed Forces for integration of various weapons on Hawk platform.

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 into a potent combat platform during conflict.

The SAAW is an aircraft launched, advanced, precision strike weapon of 125 kg category used to attack and destroy enemy airfield assets such as radars, bunkers, taxi tracks, runways within a range of 100 km. SAAW has been earlier successfully test fired from Jaguar aircraft.

It was a textbook launch, which met all mission objectives. The telemetry and tracking systems installed at ITR, Balasore captured all the mission events.