EXCLUSIVE: First Photos Of Phalcon AWACS At Home Base Agra


Photos of the IAF’s first Phalcon AWACS KW-3551 at Air Force Station Agra. With blazing sunshine, she was almost invisible in the shade of her hangar, behind the Il-76 [correction, Il-78] parked outside, and especially from where I was standing. But after scanning closely, I was just about able to make out her radome and snapped off a few after getting in a little closer. This is the Phalcon’s special hangar, where, as you can see, the front part is much higher to accomodate the radome and a scaffold structure for maintenance. The rest of the hangar is the same height as the other Ilyushin-76/78 hangars. A full report shortly on Phalcon ops.

Photos ©Copyright Shiv Aroor / LiveFist

17 thoughts on “EXCLUSIVE: First Photos Of Phalcon AWACS At Home Base Agra”

  1. Shiv,
    The "IL-76" we see parked outside is actually an Il-78 Midas tanker. If you look closely the refueling pods attached to the pylons on either sides are clearly visible.
    Thanks

  2. India also need hardly long range bombers like Tu-22m3 backfire for land attack/marine purpose is massive numbers , which china is purchasing with tot to build massive numbers in china ,which could be used for striking nuclear weapons & long range bombers against india.

    Just upgrading the bases/and shifting weapons will never make any difference , need only more new weapons in fastrack. for self defense purpose india hardly needs S-400 Sams

    MoD & DAC of india should need to consider this in highly fastrack.

    Look in to east policy has become dual & invisible .

    China is declaring Kashmir is separate country and making anti-india movements , but india simply objecting to its activities .
    Does objections make any difference – nothing.

    India should not accept Tibet as apart of china/ should issue paper type special visas for tibet /Tibet should be mapped as separate country /Importing goods from china should be controlled atleast 50 %, only necessary products /goods can be allowed to import. india need a strong base in Vietnam .

  3. Hey Shiv! That's an IL-78 parked outside! It says "IL-78MKI" right below the cockpit windows. Also, the snaps look like they've been photoshopped!! What the…?!!

    Looking forward to your Phalcon ops report.

  4. Sirji, the fact that the entire fatso family – IL-76/78MKI/PHALCON, is hosted exclusively at Agra is suspicious. It seems to indicate that either there is a shortage of pilots operating the type or that these elephants (IAF designation "GAJRAJ") eat a lot of bananas (spares, servicing)! Can you comment on that in your Phalcon report? Thx.

  5. IL-76 has a lot of problems, to say the least. I fear for them in a all out air war.

    >>October 12, 2009: Russia has suffered another setback in its attempt to revive the Il-76 military transport as an exportable aircraft for their struggling aviation industry. All Russian Il-76 were recently grounded because the engine fell off one of them while it was preparing to takeoff. All Russian Il-76s will remain grounded until it can be determined what went wrong, and whether or not the problem is common to all Il-76s.

    >>Once again, a Russian built IL-76 cargo plane has decided to have a few "problems" with the idea of controlled flight. This event was a little different than most of the others in that a just a door decided to fall off, instead of the entire airplane crashing. The resultant loss of life was nearly equivalent to a full crash. Looking closely at photographs of the IL-76 you can see the basic design flaw that led to the accident. Notice the open door. It's not a plug door like that used on most virtually every other commercial airplane in existence. The reason behind the plug door is that should the hinges fail, the air pulls the door into its frame, maintaining the integrity of the airframe during flight. With the IL-76 not having a plug door, as soon as the hinges failed, the door would have flown off, causing the swirling winds and suction described by the survivors of the flight. It was a faulty design that directly led to the deaths of all those people.

    >>Sudan’s Government is banning operations by Russian-built Ilyushin and Ukrainian Antonov aircraft following yesterday’s fatal Ilyushin Il-76 accident at Khartoum, the latest in a series of recent losses involving Sudanese aircraft.
    The Government has also dismissed the former director-general for civil aviation and named a new chief to head the organisation.
    All four crew members on board the Il-76, bound for Juba, were killed when the aircraft – transporting 36t of cargo – failed to gain altitude after departing Khartoum and crashed about 1km from the end of the runway.
    Images from the scene show the aircraft bore the marking ‘76009’, identifying the transport as Ababeel Aviation’s aircraft ST-WTB, which previously operated under the registration UN-76009. Loss of the Il-76 followed the crash of a Juba Air Cargo Antonov An-12, outside Malakal, three days previously. The governmental news agency in Sudan says that the Government declared more than a year ago that Soviet-era types were unfit for freight transport, but that private carriers have persisted with using them because they are affordable.

    Not even genocide-loving Sudan wants to fly the IL-76, for fear of mass casualties!

    India, lover of Russian death traps for its soldiers.

  6. @ anonymous(Vincent) at 7:49 am,

    Ever seen the image of Boeing Jumbo Jet that became a Flying Convertible?????

    Entire Aviation history of mankind is filled with accidents. Stop Flying

  7. Yes Vincent,

    I can see your googling skills on 'IL-76' are once again being put to use…it is a different story that u only care to copy and paste the negative news on russian equipment..

    even if u had a rare tumor (which i am sure you do..somewhere in your peanut brain) and it was told to you the only surgeon in the world who was qualified to remove the tumor was a russian surgeon I am sure you would ask some yank to operate instead….

    need i say more?

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