Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to France next week will herald a new chapter for the Indian Air Force, as its dream project of having 360 degree ‘eye in sky’ is likely to take off with both countries finalising a deal for procuring two Airbus-330 aircraft to be used as platforms for AWACS-India programme.
The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC), in its meeting held last Saturday, has given a go ahead to the proposal of acquiring the aircraft for Rs 5,113 crore and the formal signing of the deal is likely during Mr Modi’s three-nation tour, that will also take him to Germany and Canada.
The two Defence deals are being seen as a consolation for France as the hectic efforts to seal a deal of acquiring 126 Rafale fighter jets for the IAF were unlikely to get the desired results. The French leadership was particularly keen to finalise the 20 billion dollars defence deal for Medium-Multi Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) during Mr Modi’s Paris visit, as the long-drawn talks for finalising the contract remain inconclusive even after three years of tough negotiations between the two sides.
A proposal for buying eight Airbus A-330 MRTT mid-air refuellers for 2 billion US Dollars was also hanging in balance for quite a long time. In this backdrop, the proposal for buying two Airbus A-330 aircraft has come as a silver lining for not only France but also for the IAF as its quest for acquiring AWACS (Airborne warning and control system) is finally and firmly getting its roots.
India’s new ‘eye in the sky’ will be mounted on Airbus A-330 with Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO)-developed rotodome radar fitted on it.
The IAF has planned to develop six such AWACS with an estimated cost of 1.12 billion US Dollars. The cost of the first two of the AWACS is pegged at more than 817 million Dollars.
For France, revival of 5 billion USD Short-Range Surface-to-Air Missile (SRSAM) project for the Indian Navy is being seen as a big achievement. Project Maitri between French MBDA and India’s DRDO was started in 2007 but lost its steam as India’s own Surface to Air missile Akash was preferred by the IAF and the Army.
The project got a new lease of life after the Navy showed interest in the French SR-SAM system.At present, Navy’s warships are equipped with Israeli Barak air defence system having a range of around 10 km which is under process of getting increased to about 70 km.
Airbus was eagerly waiting to receive Mr Modi at its headquarters in Toulouse, which is widely known as the manufacturing hub of the country’s French civil and military aviation sector. “For us, most important part of Prime Minister’s visit to France is his tour to Toulouse as this will be the formal launch of our AWACS-India project,†said an IAF official.
DRDO and the IAF have been pushing the project for more than a half decade. The government sanctioned the 1.12 billion USD project for developing six AWACS platforms sometime in 2012 and the RFP (Request for Proposal) for the aircraft procurement was issued to foreign vendors.
The IAF was focusing on two large platforms–Airbus A-330 or Boeing  767 for long endurance of its AWACS. It finally chose the first one. At present, the IAF has three Israeli Phalcon radar based AWACS mounted on Russian IL-76 platform. The first such AWACS was delivered in 2009, with the third in 2011.
The fleet of three AWACS uses significantly advanced technologies such as electronically steered phased array radar, IFF, C3I, ESM, data-link, and elements of SIGINT, COMINT, and ELINT. Procurement of two more AWACS under option clause from IAI was cleared by the DAC in February 2014, and this is likely to materialise by 2016. Additionally, DRDO is working on a mini-AWACS project, under which indigenous AEW&C systems are to be mounted on three Embraer-145 jets obtained from Brazil for 210-million dollars.
