India to buy two more radar-mounted aircraft

Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 28

Moving towards the target of having at least 12 aircraft-mounted radars for early warning against incoming enemy missiles and aircraft, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) today gave its nod for the purchase of two more such planes called the Airborne Warning & Control System (AWACS).

Radars will be mounted on two French-made Airbus-330, which is slated to cost Rs 5,100 crore (approx US $ 840) by MoD’s Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO).

The DAC, chaired by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, also gave its approval for the purchase of 30 weapon locating radars from Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), a public sector company under the MoD, for Rs 1605 crore and ‘mine ploughs’ for T-90 tanks for Rs 710 crore.

With today’s decision, the Indian Air Force will have three different planes for surveillance with varying endurance and needs.  AWACS is like an ‘eye in the sky’ that monitors huge swathes of Indian airspace, intercept communications and logs on to radar frequencies, does ground surveillance and detects enemy airborne threats.  An airborne plane carrying the radar can detect a missile the moment it’s fired from enemy territory and send its pictures and videos to ground-based controllers allowing a faster response. Fighter jets can be spotted even while taking off from air bases some 400 kms deep inside Pakistan or China.

Pictures are transmitted in real time to ground based controllers, who can then choose a response well in advance. With super-sonic jets carrying deadly missiles, the AWACS allow a quicker response and is crucial in split -second decision-making.

Currently, the IAF has three operational Israel-built roof mounted AWACS on Russian-made IL-76. Three smaller ones mounted on a Brazilian Embraer jets are set to join service over the next 12 months while two more of the IL-76 with radars have been approved. 

Today’s decision will take the number of AWACS to ten.

 In February 2014, the DAC had cleared the procurement of two more AWACS under an ‘option clause’ that existed in the earlier contract with Israel. These are expected to materialise by 2016.

The three ‘prying planes’ that will carry BEL-produced radars mounted on modified Embraer EMB-145I aircraft from Brazil will form the second tier.

The first two aircraft had undergone extensive flight trials in air bases in Bangalore, Jamnagar and Agra. In February this year, DRDO Director-General (Aero) K Tamilmani had announced at the ‘Aero- India’ that the first plane will be handed over to IAF in June.

IAF’s quest for AWACS capability goes back to the early 1980s. Initial search was limited to erstwhile USSR.  An indigenous programme of a radar, mounted on the fuselage of an Avro light transport aircraft failed when the plane crashed in January 1999 in Tamil Nadu killing all eight, including four scientists   on board.

The Navy has its own set of surveillance planes.