Thales wins contract to modernise IFF for India’s MiG-29

Thales has been awarded a contract by Russian Aircraft Corporation MiG (RSK-MiG) to deliver IFF1 Combined Interrogator Transponder (CIT) and Cryptographic National Secure Mode (NSM), for the retrofit of the MiG-29 multi-role fighter aircraft of the Indian Air Force. The first CIT will be delivered to RSK-MiG in 2010 and the first building block of a comprehensive secure identification capability in India mid-2011. The IFF CIT equipment chosen in the TSB 2500 family offers a modern digital identification capability, compliant with the NATO Standard MKXA2modes. It will enable Indian Air Force MiG-29 fighter aircraft to be interoperable with western military aircrafts and so to avoid friendly fire. Moreover, the cryptographic mode will offer India a first national secure identification capability for protecting its own assets. According to the contract, Thales will deliver IFF for the whole Indian fleet of 63 MiG-29. “This MiG-29 IFF retrofit perfectly illustrates the excellence of Thales’s IFF solutions for the modernisation of existing aircraft” said Patrice Caine, Vice President, in charge of RadioCom activities at Thales. “We think that one of Thales’s missions is to provide our customers with solutions that can help them to be more efficient while ensuring a better protection. Thales’s IFF secure solution fully meets this goal”.