Know about India’s Air to Air Missiles power

Air to Air Misiles of India

The Indian Air Force has many powerful fighter jets in its arsenal. But no matter how powerful an aircraft is, it cannot destroy its target without proper weapons. We cannot use anti aircraft missiles or Surface to Air missiles in the aircraft. To overcome this difficulty we have developed Air to Air Missiles. They can be installed in the aircrafts so that it can eradicate enemy aircrafts easily. 

What are Air to Air Missiles ?

An air-to-air missile (AAM) is a missile fired from an aircraft for the purpose of destroying another aircraft. They are typically powered by one or more rocket motors, usually solid fueled but sometimes liquid fueled. Ramjet engines, as used on the Meteor, are emerging as propulsion that will enable future medium-range missiles to maintain higher average speed across their engagement envelope.

List of Indian Air to Air Missiles :-

Astra Missiles

Novator KS-172

Solid Fuel Ducted Ramjet

The Missile d’Interception, de Combat et d’Auto-défense or MICA

Astra Air to Air Missiles

Astra Air to Air missiles

Astra is an Indian family of all weather beyond-visual-range active radar homing/IIR homing air-to-air missile. India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) designed this family of missiles and Bharat Dynamics Limited manufactured it. Different variants of this missile are capable of engaging targets varying from a distance of 500 m up to 340 km. Astra Mk-1 has been integrated with Indian Air Force’s Sukhoi Su-30MKI and will be integrated with Dassault Mirage 2000, HAL Tejas and Mikoyan MiG-29 in the future. Limited series production of Astra Mk-1 missiles began in 2017.

Variants 

Astra Mk-1

Astra Mk-2 (Developmental-phase)

Astra Mk-3 (Trial-phase)

Astra-IR (Designing-phase)

VL-SRSAM (Trial-phase)

Novator KS-172

novator ks-172 Air to Air missiles

The Novator KS-172 was a Russian air-to-air missile project. They were designed as an “AWACS killer” which ranges up to 400 km.

It is now made in India as India wants to produce the missile in India for their Sukhoi Su-30MKI fighters.  These missiles have an operational range of 300-400 km with a mass of 748 kg and length of 6.01m. It can fly at an altitude of 30,000 m. with a maximum speed of 4,000 km/h. These missiles can be fired from the Su-27, Su-30, Su-35, Su-30MKI.

Solid Fuel Ducted Ramjet

Solid Fuel Ducted Ramjet Air to Air missiles

Solid Fuel Ducted Ramjet (SFDR) is a missile propulsion system. India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation is currently developing these missiles. The project aims to develop critical technologies required in the propulsion systems of future Indian long range air-to-air missiles. These missiles are right now in developmental trials. 

It is estimated to have an operational range of 350 km. They can fly at an altitude at 20 km with a maximum speed of Mach 4.5. Officially, the technology is being developed to power future Indian air-to-air missiles. However, the technology can also be applied to surface-to-air missiles. 

MICA Air to Air Missiles

MICA Air to Air missiles

The Missile d’Interception, de Combat et d’Auto-défense or MICA is a French anti-air multi-target, all weather, fire-and-forget short and medium-range missile system. MBDA France developed these missiles. 

A total of 200 MICA-IR and 1000 MICA-RF missiles are integrated on upgraded Mirage-2000s and Rafales. Indian Air Force successfully tested MICA missile from its Sukhoi Su-30MKI.

It has an operational range of 60 km with a mass of 112 kg. They can fly at an altitude of 9 km and with a speed of Mach 4. 

Variants

MICA RF

MICA EM

MICA IR

VL MICA RF

VL MICA IR

VL MICA-M RF

VL MICA-M IR

MICA NG 

References from :- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guided_missiles_of_India#Air_to_air