Bharat Rakshak

and that also on newer il-476 platforms,

The new Phalcon will have to come on a different platform. May be an Airbus or the Boeing. Rather then the IL. I also feet that original Phalcon on the IL platform was also a mistake. Perhaps on a civilian platform would have been different.

How many would be required for 24/7 coverage of Indian airspace?

If you need to cover one sector continuously & maintain one orbit then you require 3 airframes and 5 sets of crews. Multiply that with the number of sectors to be covered and you will have an accurate count of how many Airframes are required in the Indian context.

to have a semblance of comfort by covering ladakh-HP, sikkim-bhutan and arunachal-assam on 24x7 basis and Assuming it all works flawlessly and no downtime for the fleet, minimum 9 airframes needed.

we'd probably need another 3 as backup to cover downtimes.

I doubt we can afford 12 such full feature AWACS, we might get another 3 phalcons and around 10-15 CABS AEW to tide things over until we are more cash rich.

Would be nice if tarmak/broadsword does a story on the CABS AEW, it was supposed to have been flight tested by now with 2012 for integration of the AAAU and analysis of performance

^^^

WRT, the CABS AEW, I have looked at the specs of the design and those of the EREYE as well. In terms of the radar performance and the operating modes. I am unable to figure out if there is a difference between the Radar of the two systems.

the ereyie has lesser blind spots fore and aft in degrees per the spec. not sure how operationally relevant this is.
no room exists for a T-shape thing like wedgetail MESA to remove those blind spots in EMB-145/Saab2k sized planes.

the capability of the radar and control stations will certainly be highly classified info.

we are good at hand tooling prototype kit but not good so far in productionizing and mass production on a cold-war scale. fortunately in this case all we need to do is produce and keep running around 15 such radars with a stream of spares...not 1500.

Why design your kingpin in such a way that it will have such a weakness. Also is the IAF ok with the system thta way it has been designed. That is the qestion.

TOI: IAF will add two more Israeli AWACS to its fleet


$1.1 billion for 3 ≈ $367 million per Phalcon
$800 million+ for 2 ≈ $400 million+ per Phalcon

Is the 9%+ higher price due to newer features, a smaller order, "inflation", all of the above? Ah, the sweet agony of not knowing jack.

your answer is pretty much anyone's guess.. also I think it is only the cost of radar..the flying platform is extra. Might be wrong though

Are the Phalcon's AWACS or AEW ??? What's the data link being used? And which combat aircraft in the IAF support it?

Given the service-ability of the IL-76 platform, we need atleast a dozen of these birds to maintain air superiority.

AFAIK the follow on option was for 3 more phalcons.the fact that only two of those were ordered might signify that IAF is interested in opting for a new platform bigger than the embraer for large field AWACS mainly because of the lack of spares and support for the IL76 fleet.just my 2 nayapaisa.

Don't forget that since 5 might be the maximum to support with available spares from the existing IL-76 fleet if IAF cannibalize them. I think the IAF is planning to retire the IL fleet in order to preserve the remaining shelf life of the parts on the existing IL fleet so they can be cannibalized and used to support the Phalcons. Thus that is why IAF is so eager to get the C-17s online because the Phalcons are a higher priority and there must be spares one way or the other to keep them operational.

having to cannibalize parts to keep flying our A1 assets looks like a poor plan to me. there would be consumable parts like liners and seals that we will need new always and cannot be cannibalized.

but I guess until a steady stream of new IL-476 starts rolling off production line the situation is between rock and hard place wrt to more IL76. nothing wrong with the plane, just that Rus needs to pull its pants up...their A-50 shmel and strategic airlift is also dependent on IL-76 continuation. close to 100 airframes are in their inventory scattered over the vast realm in 2s and 3s.

^^ I would still feel that IAF better take as many AWACs with Il-76 as possible and then think of changing over to the next airframe since there will certainly be a HUGE delay in getting confirmation of new airframe and signing contract for it ( case in point is the mid air refuellers wherein the IAF stopped it at 6 and then wanted to switch airframes but is now stuck with just the 6 after the newer A-330 was rejected by FinMin and IAF cant even go back to the Il-76s after having shown Ungli to Russkie on follow-on order).

Dont want same situation with the AWACs where we might end up with just the 5 after 15-20 years since other airframe deal didnt go through.

^^^
IAF sure has learned lessons from tanker saga.in the tanker deal IAF clearly stated that even tough both met QR , A330 scored higher on brownie points.And then came FinMin roadblock.now in every tender we can see IAF ruling out less capable machines even befre it reaches RakshaMantri's table.(MRCA, 22 attack choppers)despite all the goodies we get with Ah64, i would have liked to see Mi 28 in IAF camo sorry goin OT.

You stock up a lot on the consumable parts because you know you are gonna always need them so that is easy to justify to the FinMin and pennypinchers for buying them in massive quantities but as for parts that you don't know whether you need them or not, you keep a low inventory and buy them as you need since the pennypinchers will question why you need those parts and whether you are utilizing them or not. Unfortunately for India and IAF, Russia has a poor track record of supplying the necessary spares (the ones that are not consumable) in a timely manner. Hence it may be a good idea to preserve the existing Il-76 fleet and cannibalize them for non-consumable spares.

But I do really think that IAF should have gone for a 737 or Airbus 330 platform since it is so easy to keep them flying as you can easily get spares for them on the massive civilian market. Never understood why IAF went for the Il-76 platform when they had over 10 years evaluating their own ILs. Did Boeing or Airbus demand too much of a penalty of allowing IAI Industries to install AEW&C suites on the platforms?

IL76 structural work was all done and readymade by Beriev for A-50 already. path of least delay.
airbus has never done the rotodome thing.
boeing has never done it on 737, only on 767 and 707 and wedgetail uses a balance beam radar.

we really had no easy option there. not sure we have it even now unless we get 767 (production has stopped) template that was given to japan awacs.

if we are to spend $$$ might go for 737-800 or A330-xxx ... 777/A340 is a bit too big for this.

For the extra two AWACS, why do we need to go for IL-76 based solution. Cant we just for the G550 based Israeli solution. It should decrease the time of delivery. G550 has a pretty good range.

When was the first contract signed? 9% increase is not a year on year increase so it cant be inflation. I doubt a 9% increase accounts for new tech (if you also factor in inflation).

Most likely the price of the follow-on order was already locked in the original agreement amd 9% could easily be explained by currency movements.

Actually, while you're quite right that currency movements could explain the outcome, usually, the 2nd batch is supposed to be a lot easier to make than the first unless of course you run out of components. With the first batch there was a lot of uncertainty in this tripartite arrangement even working out for such major components. It did work and we're all glad. So I wouldn't have been surprised if the price per unit remained the same, with the upward push due to currency devaluation being counterbalanced with the downward push due to "more of the same". It might not be the same though. I'm sure I read that there were going to be changes, which is understandable now that the IAF has experience in using the platform, but that article didn't state what the changes were going to be. All good news. Russia lovers need not take offence. This jingo only wishes he knew more.

And here it is after some googling:

Due to advances in number crunching capabilities, SAR/GMTI capability was being integrated into the next-gen program for khan flying rotis. So a separate JSTARS airframe might not be required.

Hope this new "maritime and/or ground coverage" capability for yahoodi-injun rotis is in that direction (along with shoehorning the same into DRDO ones's racks). But this cramming of the other additional capability(signals intelligence intercept & location). This one seem to be like that of the Rivets of khan and might be putting too many eggs in one basket. More number of specialized crafts might have deployment and up time flexibility. Particularly during the run-up days prior to actual engagement

Again airframe beggars cant be choosers (OT ultimately we need a mid-size Indian airframe designed from ground up by us and real fast).

The 737 already exists as WedgeTail. Also the diameter of the fuselage is big enough to cram a frontal & rear radar assembly. It would look similar to the Chilean Phalcon.

I do have one genuine question to ask? There are so many powerful combat aircraft radars, hasn't anybody considered fitting them to say the WedgeTail, P-8i, etc.

I don't understand why we need to be Air frame beggars. We are paying loads on money for our products. Why do we have buy an IL-76 based solution.
The Israeli G550 based solution seems to good and G550 has good range and also mounts the newer EL-2085 radar. We are making it too complex. What are the great advantages of IL-76 based solution. Cant we just customize the g550 based solution to our needs.

Not to mention 550 is probably cheaper and easier to operate and maintain. I really wonder why India chose Il76 over the readily available G550. G550 has almost twice the range 12500km vs 6400km (for A50, I am guessing Indian A50s do little better cause of more efficient PS90 engines) and a higher service ceiling (51000 ft vs 43000ft). Only thing IL76 has going for it is higher payload which makes me wonder if the Indian planes carry additional equipment over the Israeli ones which necessitates extra payload carrying ability of the Il76.

When India first got into talks with Israel, Israel suggested a non-IL platform. IAF chose the IL!!!! (Israeli choice was Airbus.)

For the second batch, Israel, again, suggested the 550. For whatever reason IAF has gone with the Il again. However, IAF wanted 3 IIRC, has gone for 2.

Do not know what all that means .........................

means, Russia-Israel relationship is not good.

You can only cram so much electronics and cooling into a g550 frame, also no spare crew and no rest area. If you are going to run extended 12-16 hour missions during war time, having a larger platform like IL, airbus, boeing will make a huge difference.

we need separate JSTARS given the paltry number of AWACS they need to focus exclusively on the a2a thing.

perhaps G550/A321/737 can be a suitable model of desi-JSTARS and beam the picture to ground exploitation stations as well. unlike directing a/c, the ground battle might not need too much operator intervention other than providing the picture and tagging known enemy threats appropriately for the army/iaf commanders to process. these commanders would separately have access to UAV and LORROS type feeds as well in their C3I center.

the IAF phalcons have around 13 operator stations per a article by a RAF guy who compared their E3 with Phalcon during a kalaikunda exercise (he got to ride inside a phalcon)

^^ Yep, g550 can be very useful for that JSTARS kind of mission. Remove battle fog and let IA planners know what the story is..

Is it that straight forward? Russia and Israel has some unique ups and downs and intertwined relationship factors --- Russian ships supplying missile components to Iran--Getting Intercepted by Mossad to many Russian Jews immigration to Israel... ...off-late Russian has warned against a pre-emptive Israeli strike in Iran though

RAF has used its Sentinel R1 bombardier plane over libya - it has a raytheon gmti radar
due to lack of funds they might retire early in 2015
a video here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13351715

here's some good details on the entire history of the proj and its ancestors.
http://www.spyflight.co.uk/sentinel.htm
The Bombardier Aerospace Global Express, selected by Raytheon Systems Ltd, had impressive performance being capable of 14 hour missions at up to 51,000ft in the ASTOR role. The ASTOR was planned to operate with a flight crew of two pilots and a rear crew of three radar operators – a mission controller and two mission analysts, each manning individual workstations. The aircraft would be permanently linked to the TGS and OLGS by secure data links, enabling interpretation of the data to occur independent of the aircraft. To keep costs down, both the aircraft and ground station workstations would have to be based on open architecture Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) hardware and software. The dual mode SAR/MTI radar would be able to continually scan a large area in Wide Area SAR or Spot SAR modes, with the MTI image overlaid on the SAR images.


--
bottomline is a business jet of similar size - embraer being the most obvious size could give us this, with modded phalconish consoles and a indo-israeli radar.
time on station and ceiling is quite impressive.
and as I theorized, fully airborne WW3 E8-khan type control is not mandatory, downlink to ground stations is ok....E8 is a huge plane and no doubt the gold std, but silver will do for a start.

JSTARS seem to have made sense when khan did not have lots of SAR in the air due to chunky computing racks, had vast oiropean battle scenes in mind and processing of disparate sensor feed was still at early stages.

right now, the data links are fat, processing can be done anywhere and the GMTI sensors can be Su30 MKIs with bicep-tattoos saying "Thug for life" (instead of a 707 JSTARS or a biz jet that needs protection). Currently khan has HVAC fitted trailers parked in innocuous corners of world to do stuff that needed JSTARS. But AWACS is still needed for offensive aerial battles really deep inside panda and an occasional scan for trains panting up the hill or trailers with cylindrical objects.

khan wont retire stuff that works, because they are robust, no tech challenges from anywhere and already amortized. We still need more Rivets to know Panda's thoughts.

The Navy was interested in the E-2D Hawkeye. Add a dozen for the IAF, and you'll have the whole country and exclusive zone covered. The commonality of the IAF/Navy AEW solution, will bring down the per-unit price and easy maintenance.

Buying those RAF Sentinel R1 could give a big boost to our surveillance capabilities.

The E-2D is as the subject states AEW which is a major concern for the government. The Sentinel is partially EI, which can be undertaken by any other aerial asset.

MKI or any fighter radar is not the ideal for side sweeping large swathes of territory and keeping it under observation because it would need to point its nose. the side looking radar of proper platforms like E8 and Sentinel are what generates huge sweep areas and allows a racetrack path to keep it under constant watch. so using MKI is a non-starter, even if it had the sensitve SAR/GMTI modes which it probably does not. onboard power and endurance is also a concern - we know the MKI does not have enough power as is to run even the Irbis let alone the Irbis-E.....will need pwr system overhaul and more engine for that like Su35BM has. the side looking radar has a much bigger 'aperture' than fighter dishes and likely way more range.

coming to airborne control (more controllers) vs downlink to ground station, I agree that in Indic context where we are not looking to advance 1000km into enemy territory, ground based processing should be ok for us, if the fat wireless pipes are ok in bad weather (this is a must , the bw must not degrade beyond a point UNLIKE my tata sky dish that loses satellite in heavy rains and blacks out for a while until it regains)

How about this?

more realistically the PLANAF Su30MKK can have a underbelly pod called M-400 for sea radar surveillance.

you can see the pic here http://i51.tinypic.com/2woamiv.jpg - one part is the pod, one part is in the conformal extra thing right below the fuselage between the engines...perhaps power and processing eqpt.

its not clear if the mission eqpt was fully developed and the pod delivered to PLANAF but the specs talk of 2.0m2 rcs target and 100km range only...clearly not good enough even for leading naval attacks let alone spotting 1000s of discrete moving ground targets
http://www.spyflight.co.uk/m400.htm