IAF to get second Netra AWACS next month

Giving a boost to the “Make in India” initiative, the Indian Air Force will be inducting the second AEW&C also known as DRDO Netra next month. The event will take place at Bhatinda and Defense Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will be present at the event.

This will be the second Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) aircraft in the IAF arsenal. The first was inducted just last year during an event held at Yelhanka on February 14.

The Netra AEW&C system has an indigenous radar mounted on the Embraer Emb-145 aircraft and three systems are being developed. The system handed over is in the initial operational configuration (IOC).

The present system gives a 240-degree coverage of airspace. The three aircraft would be based at Bhatinda facing the western border. The Emb-145 also has air-to-air refuelling capability for longer surveillance time. This capacity will be tested and certified in the next few months. India had made similar attempts in the past, which ended tragically. The DRDO began a project in the 1980s to build an AWACS, later renamed Project Airawat, but it was cancelled after a prototype crashed in 1999, killing all eight persons on board.

Additionally, aircraft has other mission capabilities like identification friend or foe (IFF), electronic & communication support measures, C-band line-of-sight & Ku-band SATCOM datalinks, etc., similar to those on AWACS & CAEW systems. Important modes of operation of primary radar system are surface surveillance & air surveillance.

Sensor has abilities to search, track-while-scan, priority tracking, high performance tracking, etc. In priority tracking, targets will be placed in full track mode even if these cross primary surveillance area. In high performance tracking, additional measurements will be made to improve tracking accuracy.

Source:- Indian Military News