DTN News: India - Indigenous AWACS To Be Flight-Tested By 2011

DTN News: India - Indigenous AWACS To Be Flight-Tested By 2011

Source: DTN News / The Hindu

(NSI News Source Info) HYDERABAD, India - November 3, 2010: Even as the Indian Air Force (IAF) is likely to acquire the third Phalcon Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) from Israel by December, India is in the process of developing nine home-grown, state-of-the-art versions and the first of them is expected to be flight-tested by the end of next year.

Five frontline laboratories of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) are working to develop the system which would be 85 per cent indigenous, Prahlada, Chief Controller, R & D (Aerospace and Services Interaction), DRDO, told The Hindu here. The Centre for Airborne Systems, Defence Avionics Research Establishment, Defence Electronics Research Laboratory, Defence Electronics Application Laboratory and Electronics and Radar Development Establishment are involved in the prestigious project.

While three of the systems would be integrated on board the Brazilian Embraer EMB 145 jet and delivered by 2014, the aircraft on which the remaining six AWACS would be mounted was yet to be decided. The DRDO received the sanction for developing the six AWACS costing Rs.10,000 crore, he added. The delivery of these AWACS to the IAF would begin from 2015. They would be used for air defence, surveillance and network-centric operations.

Military aerostats

With the three services requiring several aerostats, the DRDO would be making two types of military aerostats — the first type to carry military payloads up to an altitude of 1,000 metres and the second up to a height of 5,000 metres.

Already a 1,000-metre aerostat was afloat and its functions were demonstrated to both the Army and Air Force, he added.

Dr. Prahlada said the aerostats would be used for surveillance, jamming of electronic systems, intelligence data gathering and for communication relay.

The radar of the 1,000-metre aerostat would have a coverage of 150 km, while that of the 5,000-metre one would be up to 200 to 250 km.

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India Signs $210-million AWACS deal with Brazil Last Year, Contract Moving Smoothly

India Signs $210-million AWACS deal with Brazil Last Year, Contract Moving Smoothly

(NSI News Source Info) NEW DELHI - April 19, 2009: Even as India awaits the delivery of the first of the three Israeli 'Phalcon' AWACS (airborne warning and control systems) later this year, it has signed a $210-million deal with Brazilian firm Embraer for three aircraft for its own indigenous miniature AWACS project.

The indigenous AEW-&C (airborne early warning and control) systems being developed by DRDO will be mounted on the three Brazilian Embraer-145 jets, with the delivery of the first one slated for July 2011.

India, incidentally, had earlier acquired five plush EMB 135-BT "Legacy" executive jets, under a Rs 727-crore contract with Embraer, to ferry VVIPs around the country. "The AEW&C project is worth Rs 1,800 crore.

The EMB-145 aircraft will be modified to carry DRDO's active array antenna units, which will be mounted on top of the aircraft's fuselage," said an official.

"Though not as advanced as the Phalcons, the indigenous AWACS will nevertheless be potent force-multipliers. The full-fledged Embraer-145 based AEW&C will be flight-tested for mission systems in India by DRDO and IAF in 2012," he added.

The deal signed on Thursday comes nine years after DRDO's technology demonstrator HS-748 Avro, a test platform with an airborne early warning system, crashed in Tamil Nadu, killing eight persons.

The importance of AWACS, or "eyes in the sky", can be gauged from the fact that they can detect incoming hostile cruise missiles and aircraft much before ground-based radars, apart from directing air defence fighters during combat operations with enemy jets.

A Phalcon AWACS flying over Amritsar, for instance, will be able to detect a Pakistani F-16 as soon as it takes off from Sargodha.

Under the $1.1-billion Phalcon AWACS deal signed in March 2004, three Israeli early-warning radar and communication systems are being integrated with Russian IL-76 heavy transport military aircraft to give India its first advanced AWACS.

The deliveries were to begin from November 2007 but will now take place only from September 2008 onwards due to "technical difficulties".