HeliNa, the much awaited Helicopter launched version of ‘Nag’, the Anti-Tank Guided Missile (ATGM) of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) shall swing back into action soon.
In September this year, the much awaited missile, as per the highly placed sources, shall be launched from a helicopter platform at Chandan Field Firing Range in Jaisalmer here. The missile as per the DRDO officials shall now be tested for its Imaging Infra Red Seeker (IIR) with far greater resolution than what has been tested so far as per the demand of the users.
It was almost a year back when for the first time in July, HeliNa ATGM successfully hit a simulated target after being launched from a helicopter platform at Chandan firing range in Jaisalmer. Three ‘HeliNa’ missiles were fired during these week long Guided Flight Trials from HAL Rudra, also known as ALH WSI, the armed version of HAL Dhruv. Of these three HeliNas, two managed to hit the target successfully. HeliNa is handled by the missile handling unit of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL).
DRDO officials said that this third generation ‘Fire and forget’ missile, though lagging behind its schedule, has already been tested for its seven kilometer range but with IIR seekers with 128 x 128 focal plane array but added that the same was not sufficient for the users, the Army Aviation Corps. It is one of the five missile systems developed by DRDO under the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP).
“And now we are going to test a higher version seeker, with a much higher focal plane array (640×512 pixel arrays) as compared to the original plan. In fact, the captive trials have been successfully held in Bangalore recently,” said the official. Seekers evaluation trials would be carried out for the ATGM in hot desert conditions of Rajasthan against both moving and static targets for different ranges till seven kilometres to evaluate performance of an improved version of Imaging Infar Red (IIR) seeker for engaging and striking the target. HeliNa has reportedly an extended strike range of about eight kms. Dwelling upon these HeliNa trials scheduled for the month of September, officials said that after verifying the performance of missile with the new seekers, the user shall give its acceptance for integration of HeliNa with the helicopter inching the missile closer to the ‘deliverable stage’.
Imaging Infra Red seekers for ‘Helina’ have been developed indigenously at Hyderbad based Research Centre Imarat of DRDO.
What’s HeliNa:
It’s an improvised version of HeliNa (helicopter-launched Nag) shall be launched at Chandan Field Firing Range in Jaisalmer in September this year, according to sources The missile is being tested with greater resolution of Imaging Infra Red Seeker (IIR) It July last year, HeliNa successfully hit a simulated target. It was launched from a helicopter platform at Chandan firing range in Jaisalmer. Here, three ‘HeliNa’ missiles were fired from HAL Rudra, also known as ALH WSI, the armed version of HAL Dhruv. Of these three, two hit the target successfully.
HeliNa missile is handled by the missile handling unit of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL)HeliNa uses lock-on after launch system
HeliNa (Helicopter Nag) is launched from twin-tube stub wing-mounted launchers on board the armed HAL helicopter. These launchers are linked to a nose-mounted stabilized thermal sight and a laser range-finder package. HeliNa uses a lock-on after launch system. With an extended range upto 7km, the ATGM is launched towards the target and while it approaches the same, images ahead are transmitted back to the operator for identifying the targets.
