Israel’s Elta May have Won Fire Control Radar Contract for Indian LCA Tejas Jet

Elta, a unit of Israeli Aerospace Industries may have won a prized contract to supply Multimode Fire Control Radars for India’s Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) ‘Tejas’ fighter jet.

The company, in an October 16 press release announced a “$55-million contract for Multimode Airborne ELM-2032 Fire Control Radars to be installed on newly produced advanced combat aircraft of an Asian country.”

The only Asian country having a ‘newly produced advanced combat aircraft project’ is India with the LCA Tejas project being manufactured by state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited under an Indian MoD order.

Elta had been in the race along with Thales of France to supply the fire control radar for the LCA project and reports in the Indian media  earlier this year said that the Israeli firm many have won the contest with only the contract remaining to be signed.

The ELTA release said, “the Multimode Airborne ELM-2032 radar offers a broad range of operational modes, including high-resolution mapping in SAR mode, detection, tracking, and imaging of aircraft, moving ground and sea targets.”

The release also said that the contract is a repeat order. India had previously ordered an earlier version of the radar for its Jaguar upgrade program. The release stressed that the radar can be installed on a variety of airborne fighters.

IAI VP and Elta CEO Yoav Turgeman said, “The Multimode ELM-2032 Airborne Fire Control Radars addresses several mission types in a single product. Its field of regard, long detection range and accurate tracking provides the pilots with full situation awareness, and its accurate information is used by the aircraft’s systems.”

An Indian publication, Economic Times had reported in May this year that ELTA is likely to shortly bag an order for a new set of AESA (Active Electronically Scanned Array) radars for an air force order of 83 LCA Mk 1A jets after earlier getting selected to equip the Jaguar aircraft with a similar radar.