Mirage 2000s, the Indian Aircraft which gained prominence after success in the 1999 Kargil war, has once again proved to be hero of yet another operation by the Indian Air Force. In the early hours of Tuesday at around 3:30, 12 Indian Air Force Mirage-2000 fighter jets entered Pakistani airspace and dropped 1,000-kg laser-guided bombs on Jaish-e-Mohammed terror launch pads across the Line of Control.
If reports are confirmed, the operation has allegedly led to the “complete destruction” of the terrorist camp in Balakot sector of Pakistan. However, Pakistan’s Major General Asif Ghafoor claimed that the attack had failed to cause any damage to Pakistan.
Follow here the live updates of IAF strike on Pakistan
Here’s all you need to know about Mirage 2000 fighter plane
* The Mirage 2000 are multirole, single-engine fourth-generation fight jets, made by Dassault Aviation, the French company who also manufactures the Rafale Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircrafts.
* It comes with several variants which have been sold to as many as eight countries, including Peru, Egypt, India, UAE, Qatar, Brazil, Taiwan and Greece.
* The jet is available as a single-seater or two-seater multirole fighter.
* It has a length of 14.36 metre and a wingspan of 91.3 metre. The plane weighs 7500 kg (dry) and has a total takeoff weight of 17000 kg.
* It has a maximum climbing speed of 60,000 feet per minute and is designed for all weather penetration at low altitude. It can travel 1550 km with drop tanks.
* The aircraft uses a single shaft engine that is light and simple as compared to other fighter jet engines and is called SNECMA M53.
* Mirage 2000 has nine points for carrying weapon system payloads, five on the fuselage and two on each wing.
* It has a fly-by-wire flight control system and has a Sextant VE-130 HUD, which displays data related to flight control, navigation, target engagement, and weapon firing.
* It can carry laser guided bombs, air-to-air and air-to-surface missiles and has a Thomson-CSF RDY (Radar Doppler Multi-target) radar on board.
* A total of 583 Mirage 2000 fighter jets were built over a course of 30 years and its successor Rafael has already been ordered by the IAF.
The operation was carried out barely two weeks after the dastardly terror attacks in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama, killing 40 innocent CRPF personnel. The Indian Air Force carried out a pre-dawn strike on a terror camp across the Line of Control. According to the reports, the strike was carried out at around 3:30 this morning by 12 Mirage 2000 fighter jets.
The aircraft dropped 1,000 kg laser-guided bombs on a major terror camp across the Line of Control, completely destroying it.
In the terrifying Pulwama attack, a suicide bomber of the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed exploded a car full of bombs next to a security convoy in which in which over 40 soldiers of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) were killed
