IAI SIGINT/AEW aircraft on offer to India

April 20, 2012: The Indian Air Force has announced its intention to acquire nine new aircraft for survey, target towing, COMJAM and Airborne SIGINT. The announcement comes after a long gestation period that has seen hectic activity in contracting circles, with speculation over the number and type of aircraft the IAF is interested in purchasing. The requirements are finally out. According to the request for information sent out to vendors across the world, "Seven aircraft should be suitably integrated by the OEM and certified for the survey, target Towing and COMJAM roles including dropping of flares, passenger and cargo roles. Two aircraft should be certified to perform the SIGINT role. The basic platform for all the nine aircraft is to be the same platform and is to comply with FAA/JAAR or equivalent standards. The role equipment and role performance is to comply with related Mil STD/equivalent stipulations."

Broad requirements drawn out by the IAF stipulate that the aircraft must be certified for operations from airfields up to an elevation of 3300 m AMSL in survey, COMJAM and SIGINT roles, to be operated by the user in one role at a time, with the respective payloads for each role, and a minimum of 50% fuel carriage. The aircraft should have an internal start capability at outside ambient temperature of up to -40°C and +30°C at airfield elevation of 3300 m AMSL. The aircraft should be of proven design and be capable of operation by aircrew complement of just two pilots, and be suitable for imparting training to aircrew. It should be capable of withstanding repeated circuits, landings and roller landings for training without any adverse impact. Importantly, the aircraft must be powered by two fuel-efficient modern turbo-fan engines, and noise and vibration level of the engines should be as per prevalent FAR standards. The IAF has stipulated that the aircraft should have an APU, which can operate on ground and in-flight, and should be capable of meeting all the electrical loads including for the air-conditioning and hydraulics. It must be capable of continuous operations.

According to the detailed RFI, the COM-ECM equipment must be capable of (a) continuous search of the band, (b) discrete scan/monitoring of the band, (c) DF measurements, (d) ECM operations, (e) look-through between ECM operations, (f) recording all data related to intercepted emissions together with the messages themselves. The IAF has also set down that COM-ECM system must be capable of facilitating: (a) Deception of adversary system by introducing false information into the enemy’s communication network, (b) analysing and evaluating reactions to jamming, (c) Degradation of adversary system by jamming communications as far as possible without being observed. The frequency of coverage of the receiver must be 30 to 3000 MHZ. The communication receiver must be a combination of Wide Band and Narrow Band receivers with programmable BW.

The Communication Jammer band width must be between 2.5 KHz and 20 MHz and be programmable. The system must conform to applicable military specifications for airborne systems.

The crucial airborne SIGINT System must comprise of an ESM system of intercepting, identifying, finger printing and locating the source of electromagnetic emissions of radars (Pulse/CW), ECM systems, SIFF/IFF interrogators (1030 MHz) and transponders (1090 MHz), TACAN/DME interrogators signals (1025 MHz to 1150 MHz) and communication signals. It goes without saying that the system must be a futuristic, state of the art system using cutting edge technologies, algorithms and software. The system must be capable of rapid system acquisitions and data processing with a high degree of automation.The system should be capable to transmit data to ground through data links. The system should be capable of monitoring surveillance, acquisition, early warning, TWS, Tracking, Missile guidance, GCI, Airborne, Ship borne and all types of weapon system radars. It should be capable of monitoring and recording of voice/data transmission with decoding/ demodulation capability. It should also be capable of de-multiplexing multi channel communication. The system must conform to applicable military specifications for airborne systems. The frequency coverage of the ELINT system must be between 90 MHz and 18 GHz7. The COMINT system should have a wide band receiver and operate between 100 MHz and 18 MHz with programmable BW. The ELINT and COMINT system should have a very high probability of intercept irrespective of the polarization of emission.The range should be better than 400 kms with 360 degree azimuth coverage. The COMINT system must be capable to search, intercept, detect, DF, monitor, identify record, analyse and report of voice/data transmission in fixed freq and frequency hopping modes with decoding/demodulation capabilities. It should be capable of de-multiplexing multichannel communication. There should exist a data link to provide dedicated real time data from aircraft to ground station or with another airborne similar platform which should be capable of receiving the real time data. Data rate should be sufficiently high for uninterrupted real time analysis. The system should be capable of interfacing with the secure air to ground communication (R/T) sets in real time.

In terms of capacity, the aircraft should have a minimum capacity to seat ten passengers. The modifications for installation of role equipment would be in Y class area with provision for five operator workstations for the role equipment operators. This would include the workstation requirements for the Survey, Target Towing, COMJAM and SIGINT roles. Conversion from passenger version to role version and vice versa should be possible at flight line level.

In terms of on board systems, the IAF is looking for an all-glass cockpit (standard now for all aircraft procurements) along with a back up of conventional instruments. It should have a modern avionics suite and a self-contained accurate navigation system of RNP-1 (Required Navigation Performance -1) standard. The other avionics requirements include: (a) Two V/UHF sets, (b) Intercom, (c) HF with Selcal, (d) ADF, (e) VOR/DME, (f) Cat III ILS, (g) State of the art on-board computers, (h) GPS with interface for other onboard and role equipment, (j) DGPS enabled and FANS compatible, (k) Radio Altimeter, (l) Colour Weather Radar, (m) Turbulence and Wind Shear detection capability, (n) TCAS II along with IFF mode S and capability for future upgrades, (p) EGPWS, (q) Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT), (r) Solid State Digital Flight Data Recorder (SSDFDR) with at least 03 Video and 02 Audio Channels, (s) Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR), (t) Full authority autopilot / Flight Director System (FDS), (u) Flight Management System (FMS) (v) RVSM compatibility, (w) IFF, (x) RWR & CMDS. The IAF wants a multi-channel intercom system for communication between the workstations and the crew of the aircraft. The number of channels should be adequate for permitting role system operation independent of aircraft operation unless flight crew intervention is required.

As a standard requirement, the aircraft the IAF is looking for should have good hot and high capability in all roles. The performance of the aircraft in terms of take off, climb, cruise, landing and range performance should be indicated in the response. The aircraft should have an optimum cruise speed between 0.75 and 0.80 M and the minimum range must be 2500 nm with max take-off AUW and without external loads.

The broad requirements for the crucial surveillance equipment include microprocessor based high performance aerial survey camera systems, complete with camera magazines, gyro-stabilized mounts, control unit, input/output terminal, cockpit displays and automatic GPS controlled photo flight system, suitable for fitment on modern jet aircraft. The camera must be operable in the entire flight envelope of the aircraft. The IAF has stipulated that there needs to be a photo flight management system for interactive and graphic work environment for GPS supported photo flights throughout the flight envelope of the aircraft. The system must provide Computer supported mission planning, photo flight navigation and documentation of completed mission, flexible and precise photo mission performance with pinpoint photography at pre-computed exposure stations.

Vendors likely to be interested in the requirement include Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), Northrop-Grumman and Raytheon, among others.