Tejas successfully completes drop tank jettison trial

The 1,200-litre drop tank jettison trial was conducted yesterday at a critical point in the jettison envelope on Tejas LSP-3 aircraft, piloted by Group Captian Suneet Krishna, P S Subramanyam, Programme Director (CA) and Director of the Aeronautical Development Agency, said in a statement here.

Jettisonable drop tanks are carried by a combat aircraft, after completing the mission and are required to be dropped from the mother aircraft for a quick getaway from the enemy territory and other emergency situations.

To ensure safety of flight, clean separation of the tank with adequate clearances from the mother aircraft or neighbouring stores are needed to be established from flight test.

The trial aircraft was escorted by another Tejas PV-2 which captured the external video picture of the drop tank trajectory after release.

The theoretical predictions were further verified through 'Pit drop tests', conducted on a test specimen using specially designed test rig with part of the aircraft system and high speed photography system integrated with it.

The test cases covered a number of conditions such as empty, partial and full drop tanks as well as different Ejector Release Unit (ERU) settings.

The flight tests were planned by National Flight Test centre, Aeronautical Development Agency, "at certain representative critical release condition."

Considering the critical nature of this test, a safety review was conducted at NFTC to ensure all foreseeable safety issues were taken care of before embarking on this important test.

Prahlada, CC-R&D (Ae-SI) of DRDO said "with such test experiments made by the team, the aeronautical test range facility at Challakere has paved the smooth way for subsequent trials of different natures."

He said if this facility were not to be commissioned at Challakere, all such flight tests would have to be carried on either at Hyderabad or Pokran.

In view of the close proximity to Challakere to Bangalore it was more comfortable in conducting the test flights by the dedicated team the process of which could be monitored from Bangalore,he said.