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NEW DELHI: India is now setting course to develop and introduce indigenous advanced airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) or ‘eyes in the sky’ aircraft, which will strengthen monitoring and detection capabilities along China and Pakistan borders and help lead friendly fighters in dogfights with enemy aircraft.
The DRDO-IAF joint venture is actively pursuing programs to develop six Mark-1A as well as six Mark-2 versions of the Netra AEW&C aircraft, three of which have been built and inducted from February 2017.
Sources said the Defense Ministry will next week accept Acceptance of Necessity (AoN) for the six Mark-1A aircraft, which will involve mounting active radars based on electronically scanned array antennas, electronic systems and signals intelligence on Brazilian Embraer jets, at a cost of around Rs 9,000 crore.
“These six AEW&C aircraft will be like the first three Netra Embraer-145 jets, which have 240-degree radar coverage. But there will be better software and more advanced technologies like new base-based TR (transmit/receive) modules. of gallium nitride. for radars,” a source said.
Development work on the six Mark-2 aircraft, with larger and more capable versions of the AEW&C radars and sensors that will be fitted to the second-hand Airbus-321 aircraft purchased from Air India, is already at an advanced stage at a cost of Rs. 10,990 billion.
“Delivery of the first AEW&C Mark-2 aircraft of this type, which will also have a nose antenna in addition to the main dorsal antenna to provide 300-degree radar coverage, is expected to take place in 2026-2027. Mark Technologies -2 in fact, the planes will head towards those of the Mark-1A,” added the source.
Both projects are critical for India as it lags far behind Pakistan, let alone China, in AEW&C and AWACS. Apart from the three Netras, the IAF has only three Israeli Phalcon AWACS mounted on Russian IL-76 transport aircraft – with 360-degree radar coverage and a range of 400 km – which were inducted between 2009 and 2011 in part of a $1.1 billion deal.
Pakistan now has 11 Swedish Saab-2000 Erieye AEW&C and Chinese Karakoram Eagle ZDK-03 AWACS aircraft. China has approximately 30 AEW&C aircraft, including the Kong Jing-2000 “Mainring”, KJ-200 “Moth” and KJ-500.
The IAF felt the critical operational need for more AEW&C aircraft during the aerial skirmish with Pakistani fighters, aided by the Saab-2000 Erieye AEW&C, in February 2019, after the Balakot cross-border airstrikes. The ongoing confrontation with China in eastern Ladakh has further brought this demand to the fore.
What represents a major advantage for the IAF is that the existing Netras and Phalcons are fully connected to its Integrated Air Command and Control System (IACCS). This fully automated air defense network with data links is gradually being expanded to integrate the wide array of military radars with each other as well as with civilian radars to fill surveillance gaps in Indian airspace.
The DRDO-IAF joint venture is actively pursuing programs to develop six Mark-1A as well as six Mark-2 versions of the Netra AEW&C aircraft, three of which have been built and inducted from February 2017.
Sources said the Defense Ministry will next week accept Acceptance of Necessity (AoN) for the six Mark-1A aircraft, which will involve mounting active radars based on electronically scanned array antennas, electronic systems and signals intelligence on Brazilian Embraer jets, at a cost of around Rs 9,000 crore.
“These six AEW&C aircraft will be like the first three Netra Embraer-145 jets, which have 240-degree radar coverage. But there will be better software and more advanced technologies like new base-based TR (transmit/receive) modules. of gallium nitride. for radars,” a source said.
Development work on the six Mark-2 aircraft, with larger and more capable versions of the AEW&C radars and sensors that will be fitted to the second-hand Airbus-321 aircraft purchased from Air India, is already at an advanced stage at a cost of Rs. 10,990 billion.
“Delivery of the first AEW&C Mark-2 aircraft of this type, which will also have a nose antenna in addition to the main dorsal antenna to provide 300-degree radar coverage, is expected to take place in 2026-2027. Mark Technologies -2 in fact, the planes will head towards those of the Mark-1A,” added the source.
Both projects are critical for India as it lags far behind Pakistan, let alone China, in AEW&C and AWACS. Apart from the three Netras, the IAF has only three Israeli Phalcon AWACS mounted on Russian IL-76 transport aircraft – with 360-degree radar coverage and a range of 400 km – which were inducted between 2009 and 2011 in part of a $1.1 billion deal.
Pakistan now has 11 Swedish Saab-2000 Erieye AEW&C and Chinese Karakoram Eagle ZDK-03 AWACS aircraft. China has approximately 30 AEW&C aircraft, including the Kong Jing-2000 “Mainring”, KJ-200 “Moth” and KJ-500.
The IAF felt the critical operational need for more AEW&C aircraft during the aerial skirmish with Pakistani fighters, aided by the Saab-2000 Erieye AEW&C, in February 2019, after the Balakot cross-border airstrikes. The ongoing confrontation with China in eastern Ladakh has further brought this demand to the fore.
What represents a major advantage for the IAF is that the existing Netras and Phalcons are fully connected to its Integrated Air Command and Control System (IACCS). This fully automated air defense network with data links is gradually being expanded to integrate the wide array of military radars with each other as well as with civilian radars to fill surveillance gaps in Indian airspace.
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