Key Points
NEW DELHI: India is now stepping on the gas to develop and induct advanced indigenous airborne early-warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft or "eyes in the sky", which will boost. and detection capabilities along the China and..
The DRDO-IAF combine is actively pushing ahead with progammes to develop six Mark-1A as well as six Mark-2 versions of the Netra AEW&C aircraft, three of which were earlier built and inducted from February 2017 onwards...
Sources said defence ministry will next week take up the acceptance of necessity (AoN) for the six Mark-1A aircraft, which will entail mounting active electronically scanned array antenna-based radars, electronic and signal intelligence systems on Brazilian Embraer jets, at a cost of around Rs 9,000 crore...
The developmental work on the six Mark-2 aircraft, with bigger and more capable versions of the AEW&C radars and sensors to be mounted on second-hand Airbus-321 planes bought from Air India, is already at an advanced stage at a cost of Rs 10,990 crore...
Apart from the three Netras, IAF only has three Israeli Phalcon AWACS mounted on Russian IL-76 transport aircraft - with 360-degree radar coverage and a 400-km range - that were inducted in 2009-2011 under a $1.1 billion deal...
