A New Missile For Turkish Naval Helicopters (Part 2)

Above: TCG Ödev tows the target. Below: the point of impact and the damage to the target.

The firing of the missile.

The test bed: Turkish S-70 B2 helicopter with the tail number TCB-66.

Last week I had reported about the this photo of a Turkish S-70 B2 Sea Hawk helicopter firing a missile.

Thanks to the comment of my reader Frankie I have now more information strait from the in house magazine of Roketsan.

According to the magazine the test was conducted on 16 September 2014, from the helicopter TCB-66 which was modified for this test. The modifications included a firing control panel inside the cockpit, the special designed power and data cabling for the communication between the missile and the helicopter and finally a missile launcher that fits to the helicopter.

The missile it self is a laser guided UMTAS. It is a beam rider that means the missile follows a the reflection of a laser beam pointed to the target. The source of this beam can the the launching aircraft, a ground based forward observer or another aircraft. The missile has be locked-on before the launch or lock-on after the launch modes.

During the test the launching platform (TCB-66) was the laser designator. The height of the helicopter was 200 meters over the sea level and the target was 4000 meters away, towed the Turkish Navy tug TCG Ödev.

Roketsan states the maximum range of the L-UMTAS as 8000 meters. Turkish Navy is the only operator of the Hellfire missile family in Turkey. As is the missile is very similar in performance to the Hellfire missiles used by Turkish Navy thus L-UMTAS offers a local replacement for the Hellfire missiles.