New Delhi, July 3: India has signed a $210-million deal with Brazil to acquire three Embraer 145 jets and jointly develop an Airborne Early Warning System for the Indian Air Force (IAF). While the radar and other sub-systems of the Early Warning System will be developed by DRDO, Brazil will provide the jets that will help integrate the system onto the aircraft.

Under the deal, Brazil’s Embraer aircraft manufacturer will modify the EMB-145 jet — similar to the ones used for VIP transport by the IAF — to carry an indigenous Active Array Antenna Unit (AAAU) on the aircraft’s fuselage.

While the first of the three modified EMB-145 aircraft that will be developed under this agreement would be delivered in three years, Defence Ministry officials said the systems would be flight tested in 2012.

“The various sub-systems of the AEW&C Mission system will be integrated into the ‘modified green’ aircraft by DRDO and the full-fledged EMB-145 based AEW&C will be flight tested for Mission system in India by DRDO along with IAF from 2012,” the Defence Ministry said. It added that similar systems were already in operation with Air Forces of Brazil, Mexico and Greece.

The agreement, signed in the capital by S Christopher, Director, Centre for Airborne Systems (CABS), DRDO, and Luis Carlos Aguiar, Executive Vice President (Defence and Government Market), Embraer, marks the revival of the indigenous effort to manufacture early warning systems.

While India started work on an indigenous system from the late eighties after the IAF projected a demand for an airborne system, the project suffered a major setback after a prototype (a system fitted onboard an Avro aircraft) crashed in 1999, killing four top scientists involved in the development.

In 2004, India signed a $1-billion deal to provide the IAF the much needed airborne early warning systems with three countries. Uzbekistan was asked to manufacture the aircraft, Russia had to strengthen it for mounting a radar and Israel was contracted to integrate the Phalcon radar on the machine.

While the Uzbeks managed to send the IL 76’s to Russia on time, Moscow has expressed its inability to strengthen the aircraft as per original schedule, pushing back the delivery date by one year to later this year. The first of the three systems are now scheduled to reach Agra by October this year.