India's first Il-76-based Phalcon AWACS at Beriev's facility in Taganrog, Russia before being delivered to IAI on January 20, 2008.
Posted on 05/11/2009 1:08:55 PM PDT by MyTwoCopperCoins
Israel will finally deliver the first of three Phalcon AWACS (airborne warning and control systems) it had agreed to sell to India 5 years ago.
Israel signed a $1.1 billion deal in 2004 to supply India with three AWACS, built on Russian Ilyushin-76 airplanes.
The first AWACS developed by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) will be delivered to India later this month, Jerusalem Post reported.
The Phalcon is an all-weather system capable of logging 60 targets simultaneously and can operate to a range of up to 400 km.
Israel was supposed to deliver the first AWACS to India in December 2007 and the rest by March 2009.
The program encountered delays, though, due to difficulty in installing the Israeli early-warning radar suite on the Russian aircraft. The remaining two planes are scheduled to reach India in 2010.
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India's first Il-76-based Phalcon AWACS at Beriev's facility in Taganrog, Russia before being delivered to IAI on January 20, 2008.
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It occurs to me that having an AWACS plane airborne over the Indian Ocean near Iranian airspace would be useful for command and control of aircraft operations over Iran.
The ability to “log” 60 targets doesn’t sound all that impressive, or am I missing something.
60 targets would usually mean 60 enemy combat aircraft.
With the number of aircraft China, and perhaps Pakistan, could launch against India, the ability to track 60 targets doesn’t seem very much.
More than 60 planes in a war theater would be a bit too much.
However, these radars are in addition to ground based radars. On top of that, this AWACS is just the first of many.
The E-3 Sentry can track 50-60 targets simultaneously.
I don’t know what the upper limit is, for aircraft performing this role.
Only 18 months late and still delivered within 5 years, I'm impressed.
Lucky for the Indians they didn't go to Boeing.
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