Pakistan's Airborne Early Warning and Control Aircrafts

[mughaljee]

Nice Pics, thanks for those.

 

[marcos98]

Chinese Air Force KJ-2000 AWACS just played a main role in the air parade in PRC’s 60th Anniversary day. China government also announces that it become the 4th country which can design and manufacture Airborne Warning and Control System behind U.S., Russia and Israel.

But before the October.1 2009, the development history of Chinese KJ-2000 AWACS is still uncover from the classified files. Fortunately, one Chinese state-run magazine newly published in this month makes an interview with one Chinese leading electronic expert to tell a story of KJ-2000.

Mr. Wang Xiaomo, the interviewee who has been engaging in the research and design of radar and made great contributions to the development of the Chinese military electronic industry. Here is the brief content of the interview.

Reporter: China began the KJ-1 (Air Warning-1) Project at the end of 1960s, why it was canceled. And when did China re-initiate the AWACS project later?

Wang: The KJ-1 Project was terminated because China could not solve the problem of Ground Clutter when airborne radar power-on. The failure of KJ-1 project tells that China must make technological breakthrough in “Ultra-Pure Spectrum Transmitter”, “High Performance Signal Processor” and “ultra-low sidelobe antenna” before develop AWACS. In 1970s, China has made great achievements in radar technologies and the boost of computer also brings a reality of producing high-performance digital processor.

Besides, several conflicts occurred since 1980s have display the supreme position of early warning aircraft. Under the background of international situation, China decided to develop or acquire AWACS since early 1990s.

Reporter: It must be an unusual and hard road.

Wang: Yes. Although preparations has been made for years, whether China has the ability to develop early warning aircraft is still argued in academic circle. In 1992, several Chinese Scientists and engineers provide a report to government for explaining China’s ability and determination in early warning aircraft development. The government at that time also organized one oversea visiting delegation (I am one member of it) to three countries: U.K., Russia and Israel.

The delegation later brought one sum-up: purchase from other countries for realizing operational ability as soon as possible. The delegation at that time believed that Israel early warning aircraft had excellent performance but was immature for advanced ARRAY radar technology. Meanwhile the Russia’s can not satisfy our demands. The delegation wanted to purchase UK’s “Nimrod”, but this project was canceled later.

Finally China determined to develop airborne early warning system by domestic power and simultaneously import related technologies from Israel.

In 1992, China and Israel made a primitive agreement to co-develop an airborne Early Warning system for PLA Air Force. After 4 years, both sides signed a official contract, which defined a cooperative AWACS design basing on IL-76 platform. Israel provided a modified Phalcon system mounting antennas either on the aircraft fuselage and nose dome. But we thought that this configure could only provide 360°coverage. Then Chinese side provided another plan to install an expanded over-fuselage stationary radar dome. This is the largest radar dome in the world. For this, China built the largest Autoclave in Asia for producing composite material radar dome.

Reporter: How about the later cooperation between China and Israel?

Wang: In 1999, the improvement of IL-76 has been finished in Russia and the plane was transferred to Israel for electronic installation. Under the pressure from United States, however, the contract was canceled. Israel finally paid us the penalty for breach of contract. The quit of Israel postpone the operational timeline of AEW&C aircrafts but speeded up the domestic development.

Reporter: What do we get from the cooperation with Israel?

Wang: 1. From Israel, China learned the T/R module and composite material radar dome production process specifications to control the quality.

2. Israel helped China to design radar structure basing on data bus network.

Reporter: When Israel canceled the project, did China have other choice?

Wang: Russia advised to jointly develop A-50 and even wanted to “lend” 4 A-50s to PLA Air Force before the joint development. Actually, Russian never believes China can produce indigenous AWE&C system.

When the “4.1″ mid-air collision between a United States Navy EP-3E and a PLA Navy J-8II interceptor fighter jet, China felt it had been in a hard international security situation. In normal condition, China would own AWE&C system in 10 years. And the military department could not wait for such a long time. So “AWE&C Made in China” did not acquire much supports.

But the top leader in Chinese government supports us. In 2002, the land testing sample aircraft was finished. In 2003, the prototype successfully finished its trial flight. In the last month of 2007, KJ-2000 entered service in PLA Air Force.

We spent only 5 years to manufacture China’s own AEW&C system.

Report: Did we meet other difficulties during the R & D?

Wang: 1: Electromagnetic compatibility design; 2: Software compatibility; 3: Battlefield Data Fusion via Datalink; 4: Scanning performance in mountain area; 5: We have no choices but IL-76 platform at that time. Russia don’t want sell China IL-76 after the birth of KJ-2000. But China develops some special AEW&C system, such as KJ-200, based on Y-8 aircraft.

Reporter: Please make an outlook of Chinese future AEW&C system

Wang: China has owned a complete and full family of AEW&C system. In future, AEW&C system made by Chinese will be very competitive in lower price. KJ-2000 costs billions of RMB and some new systems will only spend thousands or even millions of RMB.

Being a large country, China in future will need more AEW&C systems. We can develop lots of variants or upgraded version from present systems.

Besides, our next object is Conformal Array Airborne Phased Radar, however, which exceeds today data processing technologies. We believe that China’s Radar technology is on the same level with foreign countries. Who make breakthrough in new concept radar or other detection methods, who will leading the world.

Background: a brief introduction of WANG XIAOMO

Mr. Wang Xiaomo, a radar expert, was born in 1938. He graduated from Beijing Industry Institute (now named Beijing Institute of Technology, BIT) in 1961. He is now the executive vice president of China Academy of Electronics and Information Technology, as well as a tutor of Ph.D. students at BIT and a member of China Engineering Academy.

In the past thirty years, Mr. Wang Xiaomo has been engaging in the research and design of radar. He has made great contributions to the development of the Chinese military electronic industry. He designed many new types of radar by using the state of the art technologies. He has high attainments in the aspect of Three-dimension Radar and Low-attitude Radar, he is the founder of these types of radar in China. The JY-8 and JY-9 radar, designed and developed under his leadership, filled the gaps in the fields of radar technique in China. These radars not only broke through the traditional mode of design, put forward the development and manufacturing of radar into a new era, but also shortened the distance to the advanced world technology.

 

[ice_man]

can the Chinese KJ-2000 detect enemy aircraft to detect aircraft in the 30° sectors fore and aft of the aircraft heading, & can it track in this sector.

and if so when does PAF plan to sing the deal with the chinese any updates guys.....?

 

[raveolution]

can the Chinese KJ-2000 detect enemy aircraft to detect aircraft in the 30° sectors fore and aft of the aircraft heading, & can it track in this sector.

and if so when does PAF plan to sing the deal with the chinese any updates guys.....?

I believe you mean the KJ-200, which the PAF will be getting, and not the KJ-2000. Both are mounted on different platforms,though I'm not sure about the difference in their radars. Also I think that the deal has already been signed, but the system is still in its final stages of development.

Very little is known about these systems as they have been developed in utmost secrecy after China's earlier deals for the Phalcon's fell through. Would appreciate it if someone could put up its specs. Thanks in advance.

 

[wangrong]

can the Chinese KJ-2000 detect enemy aircraft to detect aircraft in the 30° sectors fore and aft of the aircraft heading, & can it track in this sector.

and if so when does PAF plan to sing the deal with the chinese any updates guys.....?

 

[mughaljee]

So, we have Chinese KJ-200 not KJ-2000 am i right,
why not we are buying Chinese KJ-2000 ?

 

[unicorn148]

no till now only 4 kj2000 are built and all are with china pakistan has bought Saab 2000 Erieye AEW&C. from sweden which are too infrerior to the phalcon awacs
The Pakistan Air Force (PAF) has ordered five Saab 2000 aircraft, four of which will be fitted with the Erieye radar and associated systems, including 5 onboard operator consoles. The first is expected to be received by the PAF in October 2009

 

[unicorn148]

the kj200 are awacs of the chinese air force which are even inferior to the swedons erieye awacs that is why pakisthan is opting to buy the erieye than kj200. since kj2000 is not presently avilable for pakisthan and us has ruleout the sale of E-3 Sentry to pakisthan so pakisthan has to wait for kj2000 which are also inferior to the phalcons used by the indian air force .

 

[wangrong]

So, we have Chinese KJ-200 not KJ-2000 am i right,
why not we are buying Chinese KJ-2000 ?

lack of YL76

 

[Sapper]

lack of YL76

Due to Chinese conversion of IL76 into KJ2000 AWACS instead of working with Russia to develop a conbined AWACS platform, Russia has banned any future exports of IL76 to China.

Chinese may need to develop their own plane comparable to IL76, or buy western planes and convert them to AWACS.

Another option may be to acquire old IL76s from ex-Soviet nations and use those.

 

[wangrong]

2012
Y-XX's Cockpit

 

[PakShaheen79]

the kj200 are awacs of the chinese air force which are even inferior to the swedons erieye awacs that is why pakisthan is opting to buy the erieye than kj200. since kj2000 is not presently avilable for pakisthan and us has ruleout the sale of E-3 Sentry to pakisthan so pakisthan has to wait for kj2000 which are also inferior to the phalcons used by the indian air force .

and your source of all these assumptions? What do you know about EW/ECM/ECCM capabilities of Erieye, KJ-200 and KJ-2000 ?? Range is not only measure in electronic warfare.

R-77 has more range than AIM-120C but don't tell me it is superior to AIM.

 

[All-Green]

no till now only 4 kj2000 are built and all are with china pakistan has bought Saab 2000 Erieye AEW&C. from sweden which are too infrerior to the phalcon awacs
The Pakistan Air Force (PAF) has ordered five Saab 2000 aircraft, four of which will be fitted with the Erieye radar and associated systems, including 5 onboard operator consoles. The first is expected to be received by the PAF in October 2009

Too inferior would imply that the Swedish system is extremely limited in functionality and capability versus the Phalcon...

What do you base this claim on?

 

[AZADPAKISTAN2009]

LOL the biggest use of AWAC is to warn of intruding airforce or missile into territory and it gives you a window of 5-20 min to prepare before enemy airplanes reach your territories.

a) Pakistani Awacs have capabilities to track 360 degree and 450 km
range , what else can you ask for ?

b) We have duel systems, chinese and sweedish, in case the
swedish backstab us and sell the jamming codes to India
at lease we have our chinese back up systems. I don't think
sweeden would do such a thing they are stright shooting ppl

c) Chinese on other hand will continuelly upgrade their systems
and onces they upgrade and learn more , we will just borrow from
our brothers, since we use same technology.



Now , on other hand , imagine if all IAF fighters are linked to the Phalcon, and then that phalcon downloads a virus on all IAF plane ..

That would kinda suck ..

I mean a slight 5% or 8% difference does not gives a hell alot of tactical advantage -
Its just a radar

But on other hand , all AWACS are easy targets for awac killer missiles

 

[gogbot]

LOL the biggest use of AWAC is to warn of intruding airforce or missile into territory and it gives you a window of 5-20 min to prepare before enemy airplanes reach your territories.

a) Pakistani Awacs have capabilities to track 360 degree and 450 km
range , what else can you ask for ?

b) We have duel systems, chinese and sweedish, in case the
swedish backstab us and sell the jamming codes to India
at lease we have our chinese back up systems. I don't think
sweeden would do such a thing they are stright shooting ppl

c) Chinese on other hand will continuelly upgrade their systems
and onces they upgrade and learn more , we will just borrow from
our brothers, since we use same technology.



Now , on other hand , imagine if all IAF fighters are linked to the Phalcon, and then that phalcon downloads a virus on all IAF plane ..

That would kinda suck ..

I mean a slight 5% or 8% difference does not gives a hell alot of tactical advantage -
Its just a radar

But on other hand , all AWACS are easy targets for awac killer missiles

5-20 min preparedness, haha

Phalcon virus, haha
Chinese brothers. haha

First of off , any surprise first strike by either country using largescale air-assets can be Mis-construed as a Nuclear attack, so neither nation will have the spine to take that chance.

Secondly, well while there well might be a chance of the the Secure Data links not being so secure anymore.
There are entire divisions of the armed forces whose sole duty is to ensure the security of the military networks.

Apart from that what else can any nation do to secure its data links
so, stop dreaming of Magical scenarios where Chinese hackers upload virus into Indian defense and Pakistani JF-17 fly over New dehli.

Now this is the most puzzling aspect of Pakistan, The Shear amount of Faith you have put into China. As is they have given life and limb to save your nation. Every Pakistani scenarios i read in this forum, involves china coming to Pakistanis rescue when times get though.

You guys Like China more than the EU likes it self.

IS there in your minds a single negative aspect of Pakistan China relations.
Or are you so deluded to believe that you cant even picture a scenario where China's priorities may not necessarily be the same as Pakistan's .

In fact cant just for posterity's sake mention the low point of the Pakistan-CHina relations?
And how exactly it came to be that you became brothers and sisters?