Jan 25, 1999

Surveillance system project suffers another jolt.

By Stephen David

When an HS-748 Avro aircraft crashed in the dense forest of north Tamil Nadu on January 11, it not only killed eight people but also caused a severe setback to one of India's most ambitious defence research projects. The Avro, which belonged to the Defence Research and Development Organisation's (DRDO's) Centre for Airborne Systems (CABS), was a test platform for developing a sophisticated indigenous airborne early-warning system. But the crash has raised doubts about whether the project will ever take off again.

The Indian Air Force -- which also lost four men in the accident -- has commissioned a four-member team to look into it. The blackbox, containing critical records of the last hour of the flight, has been recovered and is being studied. Meanwhile the DRDO's Airborne Surveillance Platform (ASP) programme, as the project is called, has been grounded until the real reason of the crash is determined. But speculation is rife about possible causes.

The modified Avro was fitted with a rotodome (a rotating disc which carries the radar antenna) on its fuselage; one theory suggests this rotodome may have collapsed, causing the pilot to lose rudder control.

An early-warning system works as an "eye in the sky". Unlike a ground radar whose scope is limited, airborne surveillance can spot intrusions in airspace hundreds of kilometres away. For this, there are three essentials: aircraft, radar and signal processing capabilities. At present, the air force relies on A.50 Russian systems, which use an Israeli radar mounted on an IL-76 Russian aircraft. India does not build aircraft suitable for airborne surveillance; even the Avro was just a test platform. However, the country is believed to have made considerable progress in processing the signals sent back by the radar. Given that and the rotodome design, the plan was that India would only buy an appropriate aircraft and a powerful radar. But if rotodome failure did indeed lead to the crash, it puts a big question mark on India's early-warning capabilities.

As it is, the asp programme -- India's answer to the Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) developed by the US -- has never really inspired confidence. After Pakistan failed in acquiring the AWACS in the mid-'80s, India decided to try its hand at building a system. Things went wrong from day one: the project was begun in 1986, abandoned almost immediately and then started again in 1991 as the cabs. Remarks Roddam Narasimha, director of the National Institute of Advanced Studies and a noted aerospace scientist: "The crash will set back the programme and the system will have to be imported."

Naturally, importing such a system won't come cheap: a top-of-the-line AWACS carries a price tag of between $600 million (Rs 2,520 crore) and $800 million. The DRDO isn't so ambitious: it has spent a little over Rs 200 crore to develop an early warning system similar to the American E-2C Hawkeye. But, warns a DRDO official, "To get the capabilities of even the E-2C, we would have to spend at least Rs 2,000 crore ."

Will that kind of funding be available? No one is really sure. Even cabs Director K. Ramchand, who in 1996 spoke of how the modified Avro could detect an object flying at supersonic speed 10 minutes in advance, is cautious. "We will try to restart the project," he says. There were hopes expressed earlier that the system would be ready by the year 2000. The crash of the Avro will probably mean, though, that it will be a long while, if ever, before India's eye in the sky begins to see.

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