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Phalcons Will Help Force Detect Troop Build-Up, Fighter Movement In Pak
New Delhi: After several hiccups, the IAF will finally get its most potent force-multiplier, the desperately-awaited Phalcon AWACS (airborne warning and control systems), from Israel in May.
The Phalcon AWACS will bolster the IAF’s capabilities to detect troop build-ups or aircraft movements deep inside Pakistan, much further than ground-based radars, while flying well within Indian airspace. An AWACS flying over Amritsar, for instance, will be able to detect and track a Pakistani F-16 fighter jet as soon as it takes off from its Sargodha airbase. If the IL-78 mid-air refuellers now allow frontline IAF fighters like Sukhoi-30MKIs, Mirage-2000s and Jaguars to operate with greatly extended ranges, the AWACS will provide them with formidable “eyes in the sky’’ to “look’’ much further than ever-before through “direct datalinking’’. “The first AWACS should land in India in the first week of May, with the second coming towards end-2009 and the third in mid-2010. Our team is in Israel for the final inspection,’’ said a senior IAF officer.
Under the $1.1-billion deal signed in March 2004, the first AWACS was to be delivered in December 2007, the second in September 2008 and the third in March 2009. But the complex integration work on mounting the Israeli Phalcon early-warning radar and communication suite on Russian heavy-lift IL-76 military aircraft, under a tripartite agreement among India, Israel and Russia, has led to the long delay.
There were also allegations of kickbacks swirling around the deal, with reports holding India has been steeply overcharged for the AWACS, as reported by TOI earlier. The government, however, did not heed them seriously enough.
New Delhi: After several hiccups, the IAF will finally get its most potent force-multiplier, the desperately-awaited Phalcon AWACS (airborne warning and control systems), from Israel in May.
The Phalcon AWACS will bolster the IAF’s capabilities to detect troop build-ups or aircraft movements deep inside Pakistan, much further than ground-based radars, while flying well within Indian airspace. An AWACS flying over Amritsar, for instance, will be able to detect and track a Pakistani F-16 fighter jet as soon as it takes off from its Sargodha airbase. If the IL-78 mid-air refuellers now allow frontline IAF fighters like Sukhoi-30MKIs, Mirage-2000s and Jaguars to operate with greatly extended ranges, the AWACS will provide them with formidable “eyes in the sky’’ to “look’’ much further than ever-before through “direct datalinking’’. “The first AWACS should land in India in the first week of May, with the second coming towards end-2009 and the third in mid-2010. Our team is in Israel for the final inspection,’’ said a senior IAF officer.
Under the $1.1-billion deal signed in March 2004, the first AWACS was to be delivered in December 2007, the second in September 2008 and the third in March 2009. But the complex integration work on mounting the Israeli Phalcon early-warning radar and communication suite on Russian heavy-lift IL-76 military aircraft, under a tripartite agreement among India, Israel and Russia, has led to the long delay.
There were also allegations of kickbacks swirling around the deal, with reports holding India has been steeply overcharged for the AWACS, as reported by TOI earlier. The government, however, did not heed them seriously enough.
