France’s defense procurement agency, the Direction générale de l’armement (DGA), fired an MBDA AKERON LP air-to-surface missile from a hovering Tiger attack helicopter at the DGA Flight Test Centre in Cazaux on September 25, 2026. The shot validated infrared lock-on before launch (LOBL) and a second missile separation point on the helicopter, according to MBDA, which disclosed the test on October 7, 2026. It was the fourth launch of the program and the second from a Tiger.
The AKERON LP is the product of the Future Tactical Air-to-Surface Missile (MAST-F) program, managed for France by the Organisation for Joint Armament Cooperation (OCCAR), which awarded MBDA the development and production contract in December 2020. The missile is intended to give French Army Aviation Tigers a sovereign successor to the US-supplied AGM-114 Hellfire and to arm the planned Tiger Mk III standard. OCCAR plans the first MAST-F delivery for 2028, a date MBDA did not restate in its announcement.
What the AKERON LP Missile Validated in the Cazaux Tiger Firing
The launch aircraft was the Tiger HBE, already used in earlier carriage flights to characterize system performance. Firing from the hover, the missile’s infrared seeker locked onto a technical target 1,500 meters away before release. The test had three objectives: clear a second separation point on the Tiger, confirm infrared LOBL, and verify that the seeker held its track through the separation phase.
That last objective carries the most operational weight. The seconds between release and stable flight are where a helicopter-launched missile is most exposed to rotor downwash, motor plume effects, and airframe motion, any of which can break a seeker’s track.
Because of range constraints, the scenario used only the acceleration booster. After burnout, the missile glided to its target as planned. The AKERON LP uses a two-stage arrangement of booster and main propulsion motor; both stages were validated during the program’s first long-range firing from a ground launcher on February 5, 2025. The September shot therefore says little about range performance from the Tiger. It isolates separation, seeker lock, and terminal guidance.
MBDA said the result builds on lethality tests, data link trials, and Tiger HBE carriage flights already completed under MAST-F. Those carriage flights began at Cazaux in April 2023 with mock-up missiles, after the first lethal package trials in Bourges from December 2022.
AKERON LP Guidance, Warhead, and Range Compared With Hellfire
According to OCCAR, the AKERON LP has a range of more than 8 kilometers from helicopters and up to 20 kilometers from unmanned aircraft, with a multi-mode autonomous guidance system that allows beyond-line-of-sight engagements. Its multipurpose warhead is designed to defeat fixed and moving targets including protected main battle tanks, light infrastructure, and small boats.
MBDA lists a weight of less than 40 kilograms, a diameter of 150 millimeters, and a length of 1.7 meters in its tactical canister. The company describes a seeker with imaging channels in the infrared and visible bands plus a semi-active laser mode, backed by a two-way radio frequency data link that supports lock-on after launch (LOAL), a human in the loop, and in-flight target updates. An earlier ground-launched firing against a sea-borne target, reported by OCCAR in March 2026, exercised the laser guidance mode and the missile-to-launcher data link.
That combination is the main departure from the Hellfire variants in French service, which rely on semi-active laser homing and therefore need a laser designator on the target. The AKERON LP offers a comparable helicopter-launched range of roughly 8 kilometers but adds fire-and-forget imaging and data link retargeting, reducing the time a Tiger crew must remain exposed. Beyond the Tiger, MBDA said Airbus has begun integration studies for the H160M multirole helicopter, and OCCAR lists a medium-altitude long-endurance drone as a planned carrier.
Analysis: The September firing is an integration milestone rather than a performance demonstration. At 1,500 meters with only the booster active, it shows the Tiger can release the AKERON LP cleanly from a second station while the seeker keeps its lock, the precondition for every longer-range trial that follows. The strategic stake sits elsewhere: once qualified, the AKERON LP ends France’s reliance on a US-supplied missile for its main helicopter-launched anti-armor weapon, and its LOAL and data link modes fit a battlefield where helicopters hovering within line of sight of air defenses survive poorly.
MBDA did not set out the next firing sequence. The open items are visible: full-range launches from the Tiger using the main propulsion stage, helicopter-launched LOAL and data link guided shots beyond line of sight, qualification ahead of Tiger Mk III integration, and the H160M work with Airbus. Production quantities and a confirmed delivery schedule were not stated in the latest announcement, leaving the program timeline as the key variable to watch.