Watch: Glimpses of the IAF’s Mirage 2000, the plane used in the air strike on terror camps
Watch the Dassault single-engine jet in action during drills and IAF exercises.
The Indian Air Force used the Mirage 2000 jet for its “non-military pre-emptive action” against camps of the Jaish-e-Mohammed militant outfit across the border with Pakistan. Twelve Mirage 2000 jets were used in action.
The French-designed fighter jet has been in use by the IAF for more than 30 years and has seen several upgrades over the years, some of them carried out by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited under licence from Dassault Aviation, the company that also manufactures the now-controversial Rafale aircraft. It rose to prominence due to its performance in the 1999 Kargil war.
According to AirForce Technology, the single-engine fourth-generation jet supports air-to-air weapons including the MICA multi-target missiles as well as air-to-surface missiles and laser-guided bombs. It can carry up to 6.3 tonnes of payload, and crew capacities vary between one and two persons, depending on the version.
The aircraft was most recently seen during a fire power demonstration on February 16 at the Pokhran firing range, where two of the jets hit a target using five 250 kg fragmentation bombs in a dive attack (around the 33.00 mark in the video above).
Here are some more glimpses of the Mirage 2000 making a touchdown on the Lucknow-Agra Expressway during an air force exercise in October 2017 (around the 3.15 mark) and from an earlier IAF exercise.
What a Mirage 2000 looks like dropping bombs — file shots from an earlier IAF exercise. Today’s strikes happened in darkness. The Mirage 2000s likely used Israeli Litening laser designator pods to drop their precision bombs. pic.twitter.com/Y8P72FRLoi
— Shiv Aroor (@ShivAroor) February 26, 2019
Corrections and clarifications: An earlier version of this article stated that HAL has manufactured some of the Mirage 2000 aircraft used by the Indian Air Force. This has been rectified.