A week after the IAF’s first indigenous Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) rolled out, the Navy has approached Bengaluru-based Centre for Airborne Systems (CABS), a DRDO arm, to shop for a similar machine to add teeth to its surveillance operations.
A high-level meeting between Navy top brass and CABS brains held the other day deliberated on this and a decision that one of the three aircraft that will reach India from Brazil’s Embraer company will be given to the Navy has been taken. But it will be sometime before Navy gets to fly its airborne warning and control system as the Air Force badly needs its two aircraft for immediate deployment in east and west.
Though it is mounted on the Brazilian Embraer Regional Jet, the AWE&C is termed as an indigenous product as almost all the surveillance and spy gadgets on it have been developed by CABS, Bengaluru. The transmitter/receiver array-the horizontal bar seen on top of the aircraft featuring a series of transmit/receive modules-was fully developed at CABS. This unit is the nervous system of the aircraft giving it the prowess to map all electronic movements in a radius of hundreds of kilometres.
“The aircraft will be loaded with more electronic stuff before it’s cleared for a series of tests and trial flights. This phase would be over within a few months as the platform is a proven one,” top DRDO sources told this newspaper. CABS’ original idea was to hand over two of the three EMB 145s to IAF and retain the third one at Bengaluru for testing advance electronic gadgets.
“But with the Navy evincing interest in operating an airborne early warning system, we are now thinking of giving the third one to them. We have asked them to list out special electronics they would need for maritime operations,’’ sources said.
The Navy would need a different set of arrays for its operations as the aircraft will invariably be flying over deep seas where the electromagnetic ambience is totally different. Sources also said Navy wanted its AEW&C to operate from the new aircraft carrier under construction at the Cochin Shipyard.
“This makes it obvious that we need to do some changes in the present model. We have to keep weight at minimum with a view to ensuring hassle-free take-off and landings on the ship deck,’’ sources said.
The arrival of EMB 145 has given the DRDO some real reason to celebrate as its AWACS programme was staring into uncertainty for more than a decade after the first attempt faced a terrific mishap killing scientists and IAF officers.