India's indigenous Embraer AEW&C On Indian Soil
DRDO Statement: The first fully modified aircraft for India's indigenous Airborne Early Warning and Control System landed on Indian soil at CABS (Centre for Airborne Systems, Bangalore, a DRDO laboratory) at 22:10 hours at HAL airport, Wednesdat night. The aircraft and the flight crew was received by Dr Christopher Program Director and Dr K Tamil Mani, Chief Executive, CEMILAC. The acceptance of the Aircraft was completed over a period of 15 days at Embraer Facilities in Brazil, by a team from CABS, its work centres, CEMILAC, DGAQA & IAF. The Aircraft was flagged off from M/s Embraer, Brazil on 17 Aug 2012 at 1125 hours by Shri G Elangovan, Chief Controller R&D, Dr S Christopher, Programme Director, Mr K Tamil Mani, Chief Executive, CEMILAC and team members and was flown across multiple continents to arrive in India today.
The Aircraft ferried with several mission system external components of DRDO including the Active Electronically scanned Array Antenna with passive electronics fitted on the Aircraft. The arrival of this Aircraft marks the beginning of another phase of journey leading to the next major milestone of integration of the DRDO developed mission system, which will be followed by development flight trials in India beginning of 2013. It may be noted that this is the first Aircraft delivered by M/s Embraer for which the contract was signed in 2008. The next Aircraft is expected to arrive in December 2012.
