Barring any last-minute hiccups, Indian Air Force pilots will fly home the first of the three Phalcon Airborne Early Warning and Control Systems on May 24, making India the first country in the South-Asian region to have such a capability.
"It's ready to leave on May 24 for Jamnagar," defence sources said in Jerusalem on Wednesday. The delivery of the multi-billion dollar aircraft was scheduled on May 18, but last minute technical check-ups delayed its departure.
The AWACS will provide India means to track incoming missiles and look deep into the neighbouring countries under all weather conditions.
AWACS are primarily used for detection of incoming hostile cruise missiles and aircraft from hundreds of kilometers away in all weather conditions, as well as directing air defence fighters during combat operations against enemy jets. It also helps detect troop build up in hostile territories.
With the induction of the Phalcons, the frontline IAF fighters like Sukhoi-30MKIs, Mirage-2000s and Jaguars will now be backed by 'eyes in the sky' to look much beyond country's borders through direct data linking.
The delivery of the first of the three aircraft, bought at a whopping price of $1.1 billion, is almost a year and a half behind schedule. As per the tripartite deal between India, Russia and Israel, the aircrafts should have been delivered by the end of March this year.
The Phalcon is mounted on Russian Ilyushin-76 airframe, but integration of the Phalcon radars with the aircraft had laid to technical difficulties, which led to the delay in the programme.
The remaining two aircrafts would be delivered by Mid or late 2010, if everything goes on schedule, defence sources said emphasising that the "experience gained in the integration of the first one will come handy with the rest".
India and Israel are said to be in advanced negotiations for the purchase of three more Phalcon AWACS, which the IAF proposes to integrate with other air and ground assets.
All the six AWACS would be linked with the country's first military satellite proposed to be launched by mid next year.
Phalcons will provide the Indian Air Force with intelligence inputs, helping it to maintain air superiority, improve strike capabilities and conduct tactical surveillance deep into neighbouring countries.
It is an all weather system capable of logging 60 targets simultaneously and has a range of 400 Km.
The US had earlier pressurised Israel to cancel a similar deal with China in 2000 but gave, green light to the deal with India in May 2003.
Israel has recently emerged as India's largest supplier of defence equipments with the country's weapon sales to New Delhi constituting about 50 per cent of its arms exports.
