India has axed the Airbus A330-based airborne early warning and control system (AWACS) program and will now focus on using A321-based Netra MK-2 AWACS, reported Livefist.

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 Indian Air Force.

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

Indian Air Force has five AWACS — three Israeli-Phalcon systems mounted on Russian IL-76 transport aircraft and two DRDO-developed Netra MK-1 AWACS mounted on Brazilian Embraer ERJ-145 platform.

One more Netra MK-1 is in-service with Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) as a test-bed for further development of Netra MK-2 AWACS.

In 2015, Indian Ministry of Defence had cleared a plan worth $818 million, for buying two A330 wide-body airliners from Airbus, for modifications into an AWACS.

The sanctions for additional four platforms would have come later.

It was expected that this A330-based AWACS would have a circular-sized radome, akin to the American E-3 Sentry airborne early warning system, except that the radome would be made from three advanced, active, electronically-scanned array antennae, each capable of looking at a 120 degree field of view.

These three antenna modules, when joined together, would have given the AWACS a 360 degree field-of-view capability.

According to the Livefist report, this plan has now been shelved for another AWACS based on the narrow-body A321 airliner-based Netra MK-2 system.

Just two years ago in December 2020, the Defence Ministry cleared a plan to transfer six A321 airliners of the erstwhile government-owned Air India to Indian Air Force, for conversions into AWACS.

The program, where these A321s will be shipped to the Airbus facility in France for modifications, was estimated to cost Rs 10,500 crore.

These modified A321s will have an advanced version of the Netra MK-1 radar, called Netra MK-2, which will have more range and is expected to have a larger field of view — of more than 240 degree — of the earlier Netra MK-1.

Among the six A321 airliners acquired by the DRDO from Air India, two are being converted for development into signal intelligence/ communication jamming or SIGNIT-capable aircraft.

Additionally, one of them has been converted into an airborne laboratory-cum-testbed for development of future electronic intelligence and electronic warfare technologies and sensors, called Anusandhan.