How Indian Air Force Lost To Pakistan In The AWACS Numbers Game

The Ministry of Defence is likely to approve the Acceptance of Necessity for six indigenously-developed Netra Mk-1A advanced warning and control systems (AWACS) 'eye in the sky' aircraft for the Indian Air Force (IAF).

AWACS are airplanes with a large radar-dish mounted on the top of the airframe. These airplanes, with their high-powered radar, act as eyes in the skies for the IAF.

These airborne warning systems are more capable than ground mounted radars, due to land-based radars' physical limitations of the Earth's curvature limiting their field-of-view.

AWACS flying high in the sky can see everything and does not have these restrictions.

Currently, the IAF operates only five AWACS aircraft — three Israeli EL/M-2090 Phalcon mounted on Russian IL-76's A-50E/I heavy-lift jets bought in 2004 and inducted in 2009, and two Netra Mk-1 mounted on Brazilian Embraer ERJ-145 business jet, inducted in 2017.

An additional Netra Mk-1 is used by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) for further development, rumoured to be transferred to the IAF.

However, the five AWACS that the IAF operates are way low in numbers compared to Pakistan's nine, let alone China's thirty.

This leaves the IAF on the back foot if an air skirmish were to happen — think a Là Swift Retort — or, even worse, a two-front air war with the IAF squaring off against the combined might of the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) and the Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF).

But how did Pakistan Air Force manage to get ahead of the Indian Air Force?

Or rather, how did India fall behind in this race?

The answer lies in Pakistan's clear-eyed assessment about its capabilities and its limitation. Knowing fully well they couldn't match the IAF in terms of fighter jet numbers, they took a decision towards investing in AWACS — the ultimate force multipliers.

They didn’t stop there, adding another four ZDK-03 AWACS from China in 2008.

Pakistan kept the momentum with two more batches of three Erieye aircraft each in 2017 and 2020 from Saab, with the latest airframe from the 2020 order landing in December last year.

Yet, even after hastily retiring the Chinese-made ZDK-03 AWACS from its lineup, the PAF still flies more AWACS (nine) than India's measly five.

For the Indian defence establishment, it was a classic case of dropping the ball. The usual yarn about a cash crunch came up, and delays piled up. So much so, that the Defence Ministry is still negotiating over the follow-on contract for two more Phalcon AWACS with Israel, with no end in sight.

Moreover, the IAF, instead of going for more of the tried-and-tested Netra Mk-1 with better electronics and sensors, got sidetracked by dreams of a fancier, more capable 360° field-of-view AWACS, mounted on an Airbus A-330 Multi Role Tanker Transport (MRTT).

And this despite knowing all too well that the Defence Ministry was giving the thumbs down to buying the A-330 MRTT (needed separately for six mid-air refuelers) citing the same old tune of no money.

Only in 2020 did the MoD come up with a plan to grab six pre-owned Air-India Airbus A-321 jets and kit them out with a shiny new Netra Mk-1A radar, packed with Gallium Nitride-based transmitter and receiver modules, and more advanced sensors and electronics.

These six A-321 based Netra Mk-1A will take another three to four years to hit the skies.

Why the most logical option of installing upgraded Netra Mk-1 radar, sensors and electronics on the existing Embraer ERJ-145 is anyone's guess — leading to the ERJ-145s going out of production and the Defence Ministry now scrambling to find second-hand planes on the international market.

It is only now that better sense has prevailed and the Ministry looks set to green-light the order of six souped-up Netra Mk-1s on second-hand ERJ-145s.

When the IAF will actually get these AWACS to at least close the gap with Pakistan, is, ironically, still up in the air.