India Wants 2 Additional Phalcon AEW Aircraft

The Indian Air Force is seeking government approval to order two additional Israeli Phalcon AWACS aircraft at a cost of $800 million. The order is a follow-on the $1.1-billion tripartite agreement among India, Israel and Russia in 2004, under which IAF inducted three Phalcon AWACS in 2009-10. The purchase comes at a time when Pakistan has inducted four Swedish Saab-2000s and on the verge of getting four Chinese ZDK-03 AWACS. The Phalcon procurement did not go smoothly. Delivery of the first three AWACS was delayed by more than two years. Then, there were major teething problems in them getting fully operational, with the Phalcons even being grounded at Agra for some time. Indigenous efforts to develop mini-AWACS that would see airborne radar systems developed by DRDO being mounted on three Embraer-145 jets obtained from Brazil for $210 million have been hit by several delays and their project completion date has been pushed back to April, 2014.