Light Combat Helicopter developed by HAL (Website/HAL)Indian Army’s attack helicopters are said to be equipped with airborne fire control radars to overcome operational limitations imposed by the current systems, reports The Tribune.
A comprehensive upgrade by retrofitting the required hardware and the avionics suite and integrating those with the existing systems and weapons package are now required to be done. The Army is open to acquisition from both indigenous and foreign vendors.
As of now, attack helicopters are equipped with electro-optical systems and infra-red pods for detecting targets, which have limited operational capability in low visibility conditions or bad weather, thereby, reducing the effective deployment of the helicopters, said an Army Aviation Corps officer.
The Aviation arm of the Army currently has indigenous Dhruv and French made Chetak and Cheetah. Rudra and Lancer happen to be the weaponized version of Dhruv and Cheetah. Some of the Chetaks are modified to launch anti tank missiles.
The US made AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, already equipped with fire control radars, that are expected to be inducted shortly, though under the operational control of the Army, will be operated by the Air Force.
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