Pakistan's Airborne Early Warning and Control Aircrafts

[Yasser76]

A question to MEMEBERS.... WHY ON EARTH IS INDIA NOT BUYING AWACS AS WE ARE? whats the problem there, they surely have the money to buy wahtever they wants!

Good question, very good. US would sell them E-7 for sure, and they could get Erieye. Think much if may do with data links to their force, although till very recently IAF fighters did not even have data links

 

[Zarvan]

A question to MEMEBERS.... WHY ON EARTH IS INDIA NOT BUYING AWACS AS WE ARE? whats the problem there, they surely have the money to buy wahtever they wants!

They are slow as hell. They are trying to develop their own and order more, but they are really slow in ordering than developing that is the issue. Otherwise they realize that for entire India they need at least 24 AWACS. But their slow motions comes in the way.

 

[ghazi52]

Good Morning



1

 

[SD 10]

Good question, very good. US would sell them E-7 for sure, and they could get Erieye. Think much if may do with data links to their force, although till very recently IAF fighters did not even have data links

msot of their airforce is russian. might be an integration issue with western systems? thye could have ordered more russian AWACS but maybe they are not satisfied with their performance perhaps?

 

[SD 10]

They are slow as hell. They are trying to develop their own and order more, but they are really slow in ordering than developing that is the issue. Otherwise they realize that for entire India they need at least 24 AWACS. But their slow motions comes in the way.

yeah agreed, lots of red tape! 24 awacs? that sounds like alot?

 

[Zarvan]

yeah agreed, lots of red tape! 24 awacs? that sounds like alot?

India is three times bigger than us. We have more than ten

 

[nahtanbob]

So ... India acquired mig21 in 1965 and we did Chinese copy in late 80s ... That logic make no sense

The MiG-21 was state of the art in 1960s. It has decent platform in the 1980s. Combat aircraft acquisitions are political and expensive.

Transport aircraft are easier to acquire with fewer restrictions. The An-12 is an antiquated platform by today's standards. Could you use it ? Yes. Why would you is another question. The only reason you have is that China was making it 15 years ago.

Pakistan has choices of more modern platforms - Russian, Chinese, Brazilian and French. Assume you do not want American. It is OPEX versus CAPEX issue.

 

[nahtanbob]

India is three times bigger than us. We have more than ten

It is a lot of AEW platforms.

Lookup numbers for other countries
NATO has 15 AWACS aircraft. USAF has 30+.

 

[Yasser76]

It is a lot of AEW platforms.

Lookup numbers for other countries
NATO has 15 AWACS aircraft. USAF has 30+.

Yes, which makes Pakistan's 9-11 odd AWACS all the more impressive. Gives us very good coverage. if properly networked with 4th/5th gen fighters with BVR it will be VERY hard for any country, let alone India, to overwhlem the PAF

 

[Quwa]

Yes, which makes Pakistan's 9-11 odd AWACS all the more impressive. Gives us very good coverage. if properly networked with 4th/5th gen fighters with BVR it will be VERY hard for any country, let alone India, to overwhlem the PAF

It's worth noting that the PAF may not be planning to put every single AEW&C in the air at any given time. Rather, the large numbers could be a way to keep up coverages when some aircraft go into downtime. So, it could be more about a high coverage intensity rather than coverage reach.

Just my personal opinion, but I think the PAF will try to gradually upgrade most, if not all, of its existing Erieye with the Erieye-ER. Shifting the fleet to the Erieye-ER would enable them to keep all AEW&C further back from the border and, in turn, farther away from potential threats. The upgrades won't happen at once, but gradually with 1-2 aircraft sent to Sweden at a time. That's why ordering a few additional AEW&C (especially Erieye-ERs) is key, helps ensure that the PAF's required coverages are kept as some aircraft go overseas.

 

[Yasser76]

It's worth noting that the PAF may not be planning to put every single AEW&C in the air at any given time. Rather, the large numbers could be a way to keep up coverages when some aircraft go into downtime. So, it could be more about a high coverage intensity rather than coverage reach.

Just my personal opinion, but I think the PAF will try to gradually upgrade most, if not all, of its existing Erieye with the Erieye-ER. Shifting the fleet to the Erieye-ER would enable them to keep all AEW&C further back from the border and, in turn, farther away from potential threats. The upgrades won't happen at once, but gradually with 1-2 aircraft sent to Sweden at a time. That's why ordering a few additional AEW&C (especially Erieye-ERs) is key, helps ensure that the PAF's required coverages are kept as some aircraft go overseas.

Yes, the newly delivered birds will certainly be ER versions and upgrading the others will most likley be done in house at Kamra and should be relatively low cost.
Putting the system on SAAB 2000 was a very good move by PAF as these planes have a good 6-7 hours loiter time and very little down time with just two turboprops. The plane was designed with high frequency/low downtime commuter/short haul flights in mind. You could easily get 3 sorties in a 24 hour period out of one plane. Compared to a 4 engined il-76 with old jet engines you will have much less down time.

Assuming 10 planes, one will always be in deep overhaul that gives you 9 airframes, if you station three each at 3 different geographic locations you can get constant coverage over most of Pakistan. 3 per base will give you 1 plane in the air, one plane getting ready to replace it and a reserve plane. The added bonus of Pakistan's size is that the plane is one duty almost as soon as it takes off so there is almost no time wasted flying enroute to patrol area. Means we basically have no need now for Chinese ZDK

 

[FOOLS_NIGHTMARE]

Erieye Extended Range (ER) radar is a new generation long-range airborne surveillance radar, providing simultaneous air, sea and land surveillance. It is a result of Saab’s continuous development of the Erieye concept, increasing the detection range by 70 per cent against ‘stealthy’ low observable air targets. Detecting low observable air targets at long-range isn´t easy. It requires a large radar, a big antenna with high power. Erieye ER is based on GaN technology to enable the high power that is needed. This is also the reason why we get ultra-long range performance across three domains.Erieye ER radar is built on multi-channel AESA sensors where the scanning direction is steered electronically and also enables higher output power to increase the range performance. Long-range airborne surveillance uniquely possesses speed, reach and the flexibility to provide that information across the air, sea and land.

 

[FOOLS_NIGHTMARE]

After the Erieye-ER fleet addition, Pakistan will have 13 Saab Erieye AEWACS.The Erieye-ER is the extended range version of the baseline Erieye, the AESA radar has an instrumented range of 700 kilometres, upgraded from the 425 kilometres range on the Erieye.Ensuring national and international territorial integrity and security in today's complex and shifting threat environments, the Erieye Extended Range radar comes with an advanced suit of sensors and a multi-domain Command and Control (C2) system for real-time information collection and dissemination combined with the newest, most advanced sensor suite for long-range air, sea and land surveillance.

 

[nahtanbob]

Yes, which makes Pakistan's 9-11 odd AWACS all the more impressive. Gives us very good coverage. if properly networked with 4th/5th gen fighters with BVR it will be VERY hard for any country, let alone India, to overwhlem the PAF

there are several other possibilities
1. the ZDKs are complete junk
2. ERIEYE is less capable system compared to the E-3, Wedgetails. Maybe you need more aircraft to compensate

The operators of ERIEYE are 2nd tier players
Brazil, Greece, Mexico, Poland, Saudi Arabia (6 E-3s to go with 2 ERIEYEs), Thailand, Sweden, UAE

last possibility is that ERIEYE is more of a surveillance platform rather than command & control platform

 

[air marshal]