The country’s first Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) arrived from Israel on Monday, significantly boosting India’s capability to detect missiles and fighters deep inside enemy territory.
The AWACS, an IL-76 transport aircraft with unusually powerful engines and fitted with an array of Israeli radar and surveillance systems, skirted countries such as Iran and Pakistan, and flew over the seas for over eight-and-half hours to reach India from Ovda International airport in southern Israel.
Israel had to cancel a Chinese order for the same Phalcon AWACS systems, one of the most powerful snooping systems in the world, under US pressure a few years ago.
The IAF says the AWACS will altogether “alter the dimension of the see-through capability of the IAF beyond conventional visions of ground-based and tethered electromagnetic sensors.”
IAF would have a total of three AWACS, and all of them to be based in Agra.The AWACS is mounted with radar that can detect missiles and aircraft in a few hundred kilometers radius. Simultaneously it can also collate surface information about troop movements and missile launches, while listening to communications between enemy frontline units.
As the AWACS entered the Indian airspace, a formation of three Mig-29 and three Jaguar aircraft received the aircraft mid-air and escorted it to the Jamnagar airbase around noon on Monday. The commanding officer of the first AWACS squadron, group captain B Saju, was quoted as saying, “It was a great feeling to be escorted by our fighters and it feels really good to be back.” The AWACS would be formally inducted into IAF later this week.
