Russian A-100 AEW&C Aircraft Performs First Flight with Radar

Russia’s newest airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft, the A-100 Premier, took to the skies for the first time with a working radar.

The first flight of the A-100 prototype took place in February 2019. Earlier, an experimental A-100LL performed several flights as part of flight design tests.

An informed source told Russian state-owned agency RIA Novosti that the aircraft on February 9 made its maiden flight with radar equipment turned on.

The Premier program began in 2006 and the A-100 was scheduled to enter service in late 2020. It is being built by Vega Concern, Taganrog Beriev Aircraft Scientific and Technical Complex (TANTK) and United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) to provide an edge over the Cold War-era A-50 Mainstay being used by the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS).

Russia wants to complete testing the A-100 by 2024.

Under the Premier-476 program, the new radar equipment was first mounted on an old 1990 built AWACS A-50 aircraft. It became a flying laboratory, which worked out the individual elements of the complex.

The modernized lightweight Il-76MD-90A aircraft produced in Ulyanovsk at the Aviastar-SP enterprise was chosen as the platform for the A-100. It can be on duty a thousand kilometres from its base for six hours in the air. It can be refuelled in flight.

The Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) will be placed 200km from the front line and can detect far into the depths of the enemy’s defenses. The latest AWACS planes can transmit target data fully automatic without using voice communication. The Russians claim it is almost impossible to “muffle” it with electronic warfare (EW).

The Premier has a new dual-band phased array radar using which it will be able to detect air and sea and ground targets. The aircraft has an increased detection range and can better distinguish targets, including aircraft ‘invisible’ to conventional radars and cruise missiles created using stealth technologies. The Russian flying radar can reportedly simultaneously track up to 300 targets at 650 km.

The onboard communication equipment allows the aircraft to be integrated into modern automated control systems. It can transmit real-time aerial information to ground headquarters and air defense systems, as per reports.

The aircraft received a digital control system and a modern “glass cockpit” with multifunctional indicators instead of mechanical instruments.