India's nuclear-strike capable Mirage-2000 gets an upgrade

The IAF acquired the Mirage-2000 fighters from France in the early 80s, primarily to counter Pakistan's F-16s With the upgrade, the operational life of the multi-role fighters has been enhanced by around 20 years  

In a major boost to the Indian defence capabilities, the Indian Air Force's upgraded Mirage-2000 aircraft successfully flew over Bengaluru skies.

The upgraded Mirage-2000 fighter aircraft was fitted with India-made multi-function displays under an Indo-French partnership, as part of a programme to enhance the operational life of the multi-role fighters by around 20 years. 

The Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), in a statement on Friday, announced that the first Full Operational Capability (FOC) upgraded Mirage-2000 aircraft flew in Bengaluru on July 28.

“We have done it again on time. This proves HAL’s capability of a mid-life upgrade of platforms to overcome obsolescence issues and enhance the reliability and maintainability of these aircraft. The introduction of the state-of-the-art facility created for this project ensures the timely upgradation of the Mirage fleet”, T Suvarna Raju, CMD, HAL said in an official release.

The Final Operational Configuration (FOC) design was implemented on an Initial Operational Configured (IOC) aircraft which was received at HAL only about eight months ago. 

"This significant milestone could be achieved by the dedicated efforts of the HAL’s team of designers and engineers with active support from IAF, RCMA and DGAQA”, adds Raju in an official statement.  

IAF acquired the Mirage 2000 fighters from France in late 1970s and early 80s, primarily to counter Pakistan's F-16s, which had been supplied by the USA.

In March 2015, French Defence majors Dassault Aviation and Thales upgraded two aircraft for India. Following which HAL was given the task of configuring the remaining 49  Mirage-2000 in the fleet.

The Mirage fleet will now be upgraded with India specific weapons, sensors and EW system, besides capability of air-to-ground weapons, training and helmet mounted displays.

The first flight of 45 minutes was piloted by Gp. Capt C. Subramaniam (Retd.), Chief Test Pilot of HAL from the front cockpit and Wg. Cdr Haldikar of ASTE, IAF in the rear cockpit. Gp. Capt. A. Mishra of IAF acted as the test director.

Mirage-2000

India has assigned a nuclear strike role to its Mirage-2000 squadrons. In 1999, during the Kargil war, the Mirage-2000 performed remarkably well. Two Mirage squadrons were deployed during the conflict, and they flew a total of 515 sorties, and in 240 strike missions dropped 55,000 kg (121,000 lb) of ordnance on the enemy.

In May 2015, the Indian Air Force, as part of its test to  use national highways and civil airstrips for emergency landing by fighter jets, testlanded a Mirage-2000 on a highway.