According to the Indian military website idrw reported on November 12, 2021, Former Indian military pilot Sameer Joshi posted a photo on Twitter of an HS-748 early warning aircraft platform developed by the "Avaro" aircraft company, with an obvious rotatable disc radome mounted on the back of the fuselage. If you compare the new rotatable radar radome with the old image of the first HS-748 early warning prototype, you can see that this new radome looks smaller and has more support structures. It is unclear whether the aircraft is intended to be used as a test prototype or as a ground test prototype of India's self-developed AWACS project.
[New pictures of the Indian HS-748 early warning prototype appearing on the online media]
In 1999, an HS-748 early warning aircraft, a testbed of the Indian Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO)-led Aerial Surveillance Platform (ASP) program, crashed in dense forests in northern Tamil Nadu during the test, killing eight crew members. At the time of the plane crash, the ASP project had completed most of the radar's key performance tests, which were allegedly due to a structural failure of the rotating radar radome. Rumors were spread at the time that a second prototype was ready to test a radar close to production before the project was shelved due to the crash. The latest photos may show a second surviving prototype, but since the specific details are not yet public, it is only waiting for official confirmation.
[Indian AWACS model on display at Air India International Exhibition 2021 in Bangalore, 3-5 February 2021]
Five years after the crash, in 2004, drdo approved a project called Airborne Early Warning and Control System (AEW&C), which was developed based on Embraer's embraer-145 aircraft platform (AEW&C), now known as Netra Mk1. The Netra AWACS aircraft uses an active antenna array unit (AAAU) and is mounted on the back of the fuselage by four support frames.
[On February 26, 2019, India deployed a domestic early warning and control system on a Embraer aircraft]
India's latest AWACS project was originally planned to use Airbus's A330 aircraft as a platform, install a rotating radar radome on the back of the fuselage, and install a fixed AESA radar inside it, but due to the cost and the long research and development time required for the project to mature, the Indian government decided to develop the "Netra" MkII early warning aircraft instead, and the new early warning platform is six former Indian Airlines A319 aircraft, which will install upgraded units on the back of the fuselage. In addition, forward-looking AESA radars will be installed to improve better airspace coverage.
Author: Ningpu
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