India to receive first Phalcon AWACS on May 24

Harinder Mishra

Jerusalem, May 20 (PTI) Barring any last-minute hiccups,
Indian Air Force (IAF) pilots will fly home the first of the
three Phalcon Airborne Early Warning and Control Systems
(AWACS) on Sunday, making India the first country in the
South-Asian region to have such a capability.
"It's ready to leave on May 24 for Jamnagar,"
defence sources said here Wednesday. The delivery of the
multi-billion dollar aircraft was scheduled on May 18, but
last minute technical check-ups delayed its departure.

The AWACS will provide India means to track incoming
missiles and look deep into the neighbouring countries under
all weather conditions.

AWACS are primarily used for detection of incoming
hostile cruise missiles and aircraft from hundreds of kms away
in all weather conditions, as well as directing air defence
fighters during combat operations against enemy jets. It also
helps detect troop build up in hostile territories.

With the induction of the Phalcons, the frontline IAF
fighters like Sukhoi-30MKIs, Mirage-2000s and Jaguars will now
be backed by "eyes in the sky" to look much beyond country's
borders through direct data linking.

The delivery of the first of the three aircraft, bought
at a whopping price of 1.1 billion USDs, is almost a year and
a half behind schedule. As per the tripartite deal between
India, Russia and Israel, the aircrafts should have been
delivered by the end of March this year.

The Phalcon is mounted on Russian Ilyushin-76 airframe,
but integration of the Phalcon radars with the aircraft had
laid to technical difficulties, which led to the delay in the
programme.

The remaining two aircrafts would be delivered by Mid or
late 2010, if everything goes on schedule, defence sources
said emphasising that the "experience gained in the
integration of the first one will come handy with the rest".

India and Israel are said to be in advanced negotiations
for the purchase of three more Phalcon AWACS, which the IAF
proposes to integrate with other air and ground assets.

All the six AWACS would be linked with the country's
first military satellite proposed to be launched by mid next
year.

Phalcons will provide the Indian Air Force with
intelligence inputs, helping it to maintain air superiority,
improve strike capabilities and conduct tactical surveillance
deep into neighbouring countries.

It is an all weather system capable of logging 60
targets simultaneously and has a range of 400 Kms.

The US had earlier pressurised Israel to cancel a
similar deal with China in 2000 but gave, green light to the
deal with India in May 2003.

Israel has recently emerged as India's largest supplier
of defence equipments with the country's weapon sales to New
Delhi constituting about 50 per cent of its arms exports. PTI
HM
PMR