India’s Big AWACS Plans; Mini-concept provides another chance to use research begun in 1999

Within two months of signing the $1.1-billion Phalcon Airborne Early Warning and Control Systems contract, India is looking to revive its own $400-million AWACS project.

To be called the Mini-AWACS system, the project harkens back to the indigenous airborne surveillance platform (ASP) effort shelved by India’s Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) in 1999 after a modified Avro HS-748 crashed, killing four scientists and four air force officers on board. The accident was blamed on a rotodome that blew off, indicating a failure in the modification process.

THE PROJECT WAS under the supervision of DRDO’s Center for Airborne Systems (CABS), which had another rotodome and modified HS-748 they wished to field. But the ministry of defense refused clearance and ordered CABS to go slow on the project.

That was handwriting on the wall for aerospace scientist Roddam Narasimha, who predicted then that any future effort would need outside help, saying “The crash will set back the program and the system will have to be imported.”

In reviving CABS’ proposal, Defense Minister George Fernandes said the discriminator this time will be exactly what Narasimha expected–use of foreign technology and expertise. In that regard, one source close to the program says the original platform was aerodynamically wrong. “It should have been mounted on an Il-76, not on a passenger-carrying Avro.”

However, this time DRDO is expected to mount the Mini-AWACS’ phased-array radar on an in-production executive jet, according to K.U. Limaye, director of the Electronics and Radar Development Establishment and head of CABS. An experimental radar is already in testing, he added.

As directed by Fernandes, India also will turn to foreign experts for systems engineering and integration help.

The Israel Aircraft Industries’ Phalcon will be carried on an Ilyushin Il-76 platform for India’s AWACS contract.

India has begun talks with Israel about joint production of the Mini-AWACS, according to DRDO chief V.K. Atre. After Russia, Israel is India’s second-largest weapons system supplier and the two countries are looking into jointly funding reasearch and development in electronic warfare systems, as well as in major undertakings to build Searcher II and Heron unmanned aerial vehicles.

DRDO has been interested in the AWACS project for a long time. It initiated 43 lead-in proposals for the project to prove various concepts and technologies, outline specifications and develop a technical database and prototype hardware. But at the time, much of this was dismissed by critics as unreliable.

DRDO officials defended their work as experimental, noting that its reliability would be demonstrated to the Indian air force if it placed an order.

But A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, then-head of DRDO and now India’s president, commented during the 1998 Bangalore air show that the project was scalable. “If the user wants a longer range, we can have a bigger platform,” he said.

Had it decided to go that route, DRDO would likely have turned to Ilyushin or Boeing for a platform, officials said.

Credit: Neelam Matthews