India Explores Low-Observable Aircraft Technologies

Undeterred by development headaches on some of its indigenous fighter programs, in the next two decades Indian military researchers are looking to explore a range of stealth technologies for future-generation manned and unmanned aircraft. At the same time, the country is exploring ways to better detect stealth aircraft. Detecting low-observable aircraft is a key element of the Indian 2020 airborne early warning and control development effort, a program likely to start in late 2014. It will be based on a yet-to-be selected widebody. This initiative follows the current Embraer EMB-145-based airborne early warning program featuring an Indian-developed, 240-deg. field-of-view radar. The first of the modified regional jets is due for delivery to India in August, with radar integration to start in October ...