The Tejas Light Combat Aircraft programme has received a major fillip with the first successful flight test using the `Listening Pod` which can provide the pilot with day and night pictures of terrain by laser technology.
``In a flawless flight yesterday (Dec, 11th), Prototype Vehicle-2 took off with the Laser Ranging and Laser spot seeking (LDP) at around 1630 hrs and completed a landmark flight in which all test objectives were achieve``, an official source said.
The flight was flown by Wg Cdr N Tiwari of the National Flight Test centre. Wg Cdr M Prabhu as the Test Director, R S Rao, Project Director (System) and J J Jhadhav, Deputy Project Director, were present at the telemetry station to monitor the performance. The performance is as per the design, it said.
``Carriage of the LDP confers a significant precision strike capability to the Tejas in conjunction with laser guided bombs or what are commonly referred to as smart bombs,``it was stated.