Weapon Stats:

Taxan target drogue

The Taxan target drogue is towed behind the aircraft and used for gunnery practice. The Taxan agile target is highly manoeuvrable and contains a real time scoring device which counts rounds passing through a volume which is comparable in size to an enemy aircraft. The target equipment is recoverable and may be re-used for further missions.

The system comprises:
• Container: for carriage of tow cable and target to range area.
• Target: Taxan with scoring system.
• Receiving station: to receive signals from target scoring system.

The Secapem container 520 is designed for carriage under a tow aircraft equipped with pylons or racks which have standard NATO 14 twin suspension equipment. The container provides the carriage, deployment, towing and release for recovery of the Taxan agile target, complete with 500 meters of tow cable for air-to-air or 1500 meters for surface-to-air missions. The ejection and the release of the target with 500 meters of cable needs only 8 seconds each.

The system can be flown in a variety of gunnery patterns including circular, butterfly descending spiral and combat dart (500Kts - 6g's).

At the end of the mission, the target may be recovered from the ground and is re-usable once it has been checked and accessories replaced.

The system was in use on the Cheetah and has been qualified on the Hawk Mk 120.