BANGALORE: India’s prying plane is ready. Called the Airborne Early Warning & Control System (AEW&CS), this tech beast comes in the form of a modified Embraer aircraft (EMB-145 I). Sources told The New Indian Express that the first flight is officially scheduled for December 7 in Brazil. The Centre for Air Borne Systems (CABS), a Bangalore-based wing of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), is developing systems to make the EMB-145 I a mean machine.
Indian Air Force (IAF) will receive three such platforms in the next three years with the first aircraft landing in Bangalore, coming June. “They (CABS) will need six months to integrate the sub-systems, after the EMB-145 I arrives,” sources said.
Once operational, India will join an exclusive club of nations owning home-grown eyes in the sky systems.
Currently, Wedge Tail (USA-Boeing), Phalcon (Israel-IAI) and Erieye (Sweden-Ericsson) are world leaders in prying-from-the-top-technology. India had inked a pact with Brazil in 2008 to modify the Embraer so as to integrate the Active Array Antenna Unit (AAAU) on the aircraft’s fuselage. The project comes with an updated price tag of Rs 2,157 crore.
CABS director S Christopher confirmed that an Indian delegation will travel to Brazil in the first week of June. G Elangovan, DRDO’s chief controller (Avionics) in Delhi, told Express that the EMB-145 I will be the cheapest platform, carrying mission systems, radar, communication units and electronic warfare systems.
The EMB-145 I will boost India’s network-centric warfare capabilities. Apart from surveillance, it can track aircraft, UAVS and detect radar signals. It has the ability to scan up to 400 km, giving the IAF recognised air situations thereby enabling battle field management. The aircraft can operate with a maximum crew of 12 people, including operators, rest crew, pilot, co-pilot and flight test engineer. It can fly non-stop for 10-12 hours with mid-air-refuelling. Sources say DRDO has launched a name-hunt, before its baby enters Indian air space in June.
DRDO’s earlier attempt to make a surveillance platform (Project Guardian/Airawat) was a disaster as the HS-748 test-bed aircraft crashed in 1999, killing scientists.