NEW DELHI: India on Friday successfully flight-tested Tactical Advanced Range Augmentation (TARA), an indigenously developed glide-bomb kit that can convert conventional unguided bombs into long-range precision weapons, a capability the Indian Air Force (IAF) has so far depended largely on foreign-origin systems to achieve.
The DRDO and IAF carried out the maiden trial of the system off the Odisha coast using a Jaguar strike aircraft as the launch platform. Developed by Hyderabad-based Research Centre Imarat (RCI), TARA is essentially a bolt-on range-extension and precision-guidance kit for the IAF’s existing inventory of High-Speed Low Drag (HSLD) and General Purpose (GP) / dumb bombs.
Sources said the operational significance lies in the stand-off capability the system offers. “With TARA, fighters can strike heavily defended targets without entering the engagement envelope of hostile air-defence systems, a requirement increasingly central to contemporary air warfare,” a source said. The glide-kit is being integrated across multiple IAF fighter platforms including the Jaguar, Mirage-2000, Sukhoi Su-30MKI and the homegrown Tejas aircraft, potentially giving the force a common stand-off strike capability across fleets.
“TARA is broadly comparable to the Israeli-origin SPICE precision-guided bomb kits already operational with the IAF. However, the homegrown system is expected to substantially reduce costs while allowing the air force to utilise existing bomb stockpiles instead of procuring entirely new missile inventories,” the source added.
The system deploys wing and tail units after release and uses inertial navigation, GPS-assisted guidance and electro-optical seekers to convert conventional “dumb” bombs into stand-off precision weapons capable of striking targets with a high degree of accuracy.
Being developed in 250-kg, 450-kg and 500-kg configurations, TARA-equipped bombs can hit targets at ranges of 150-180 km when released from an altitude of around 5 km at speeds approaching Mach 0.8.
The system is geared to achieve an accuracy level of under five metres circular error probability, with some developmental trials recording even tighter precision under favourable conditions.