The Netra Mk2 AEW&C programme has moved from the drawing board to the hangar, and the six Airbus A321 jets that will carry it are now set for a conversion that begins in India and ends in Spain. Each aircraft is to be fitted with more than a hundred indigenous radars, sensors, antennas and electronic warfare systems, a payload meant to give Indian controllers a running picture of the airspace far past the border.

Two contracts signed on 22 July set the work in motion. The Centre for Air Borne Systems, DRDO's Bengaluru laboratory for airborne surveillance, has contracted AI Engineering Services Limited to strip the six former Air India A321s down to a bare, or green, airframe, and has named Adani Defence Systems and Technologies Limited as its development-cum-production partner for the mission systems. The Adani contract carries lifecycle support running to thirty years, covering integrated logistics and maintenance, repair and overhaul.

From airliner to green airframe

The A321s did not roll off a line built for war. India bought them from Air India before the carrier's disinvestment, and they have since flown with the Air Headquarters Communication Squadron. Turning an airliner into a surveillance platform starts with emptying it. AIESL will pull out the seats, overhead bins, galleys and cabin fittings, leaving the structure and its essential wiring. That bare shell is the green aircraft on which everything else goes.

The harder part happens abroad.

Once the green conversion is finished in India, each jet flies to Airbus Defence and Space in Spain. As the original maker of the airframe, Airbus will carry out the structural and aerodynamic work that a rotodome and its supporting systems demand. Defence sources describe changes that reach well beyond bolting a radar to the roof. Mounting the antenna shifts the aircraft's centre of gravity, so the airframe needs reinforcement, along with extra power generation and cooling for electronics that draw heavily on both. The role follows a separate contract that CABS signed with Airbus late last year to support the platform modification.

More than a hundred sensors on each Netra Mk2 AEW&C aircraft

With the airframe reworked, the mission suite goes in. Each Netra Mk2 AEW&C aircraft is to carry over a hundred radars, sensors, antennas and electronic warfare systems, enough to detect, identify and track a large number of targets at once. Defence sources put the coverage at a full 360 degrees reaching hundreds of kilometres, taking in fighters, cruise missiles, drones, helicopters, transport aircraft and even surface ships well outside Indian airspace.

It is not only a set of eyes. The aircraft doubles as an airborne command post, directing the fighters it watches over.

Integration that moves steadily back to India

The build will not stay tied to Europe. The first three aircraft are expected to have their mission systems integrated with help from Airbus. After that the work shifts increasingly to Indian hands, with ADSTL and the wider Adani group taking on the integration at home, while CABS stays the design authority for the systems throughout.

What the IAF flies today

The IAF's heaviest airborne radars sit on three Phalcon AWACS, mounted on Russian IL-76 transports, which sweep a full circle out to roughly 400 kilometres. Below them are three indigenous Netra aircraft on the Brazilian Embraer platform, one of which CABS keeps for development flying.

The Netra has served the force well, but it was built small. Its detection reaches to around 200 kilometres and it carries fewer sensors than the heavier sets. To thicken the fleet in the near term, India is also readying six upgraded Netra Mk1A aircraft on the same Embraer airframe, fitted with newer radars and electronics. That contract is expected next year.

The coverage gap the fleet is built to close

Numbers matter here because the adversary has more of them. During the 2019 air engagement that followed the Balakot strike, a switch between airborne surveillance assets briefly thinned the IAF's continuous radar cover, and Pakistan used the opening in its response. Pakistan today fields eight Saab 2000 Erieye early-warning aircraft and four Chinese ZDK-03 Karakoram Eagle AWACS, a fleet sized for round-the-clock watch. It began with nine of the Saab jets; one was lost during Operation Sindoor.

Indian planners have argued for years that persistent cover along both the western and northern fronts, and the network-centric operations the IAF is moving towards, need a far larger early-warning fleet than three Phalcons and three Netras.

An Indian-built mission suite

Before any of it enters service, CABS and ADSTL will fly the modified aircraft with the IAF and take them through certification by the Centre for Military Airworthiness and Certification and the Directorate General of Aeronautical Quality Assurance. On current timelines, the first aircraft is expected to reach the IAF around 2032 to 2033.

What marks the Mk2 out is how much of it is Indian. The radars, sensors and electronic warfare fit are being built at home, with CABS as the nodal laboratory and Adani Defence the first private company handed the job of developing and integrating an airborne mission platform of this scale. The programme sits inside the Cabinet Committee on Security's clearance of roughly Rs 19,000 crore from July last year, awarded under the Ministry of Defence.