At the end of the 80s, when the Chinese air defense forces did not yet have long-range anti-aircraft missile systems of the upper line S-300PS / PMU-1 and Chinese analogues HQ-9, and the air superiority fighter aircraft could only boast of outdated fighters- interceptors J-8II "Finback-B" with an air-to-air missile system of the PL-5B type with a range of 15-20 km, the flights of the MiG-25R high-altitude photo reconnaissance aircraft that were perfect at that time in the Indian Air Force over the Celestial Empire were limited only by the technical range of these machines, which was 920-1050 km … In 1981, in order to conduct effective tactical reconnaissance in the deep rear of potential enemies - China and Pakistan, the Indian Ministry of Defense purchased from the USSR a batch of 10 high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft MiG-25R and 3 MiG-25RU, which were consolidated into the 102nd reconnaissance squadron " The Trisonic "(can be translated as" 3-swing "); pilots "twenty-five" were called "agents 007 of the Air Force."
High-altitude photo reconnaissance aircraft MiG-25R, which showed unique flight speeds up to 3395 km / h (comparable to SR-71A "Blackbird") and a climb rate of 25 km in 3, 3 minutes, allowed Indian pilots to perform a dynamic slide with a three-kilometer excess of the practical ceiling directly over the square of photographic reconnaissance. The altitude reached 26,000 m, which made it possible to minimize the risks of intercepting Foxbet by the existing C-75 air defense systems. Since 1993, the situation has changed dramatically, and flights of the MiG-25R from the Trisonik squadron over the PRC had to be stopped. Relations between Moscow and Beijing began to improve dramatically after 20 years of "stagnation" associated with the territorial military conflict on Damansky Island. The first result was the restoration of military-technical cooperation: already in 1994, the S-300PS anti-aircraft missile divisions appeared in the armament of China's air defense, completely covering the country's airspace for the Indian MiG-25R. Moreover, the Chinese Air Force adopted Su-27 fighter-interceptors, equipped with powerful at that time N001 airborne radars and R-27R / ER missiles, leaving Indian MiGs no chance of an unpunished invasion of Chinese airspace. That is why in the 90s the safe operation zone of the Trisonic squadron sharply narrowed to only one territory of Pakistan and a section of the Indian-Chinese border that has no strategic value.
The most famous flight of the Indian MiG-25R over Pakistani territory took place in May 1997. Then one of the squadron's cars "passed" at an altitude of 19500 m, directly above the capital of the country - Islamabad, with an average speed of 2100-2200 km / h. According to the military-analytical resource "Military Parity", the unpunished entry of the MiG-25R into Pakistani airspace occurred due to the lack of fighters in the country's air force capable of intercepting such a high-altitude and fast aerodynamic target. However, this opinion is biased. To begin with, it is worth noting the fact that in the 80-90s. The Pakistan Air Force was armed with 18 Mirage-IIIEP interceptor fighters and 58 Mirage-5PA2 / 3. The "Mirage-5PA3" variant was equipped with an onboard radar with a Cassegrain "Agave" reverse scheme, which allows detecting a large MiG-25R at a range of 46-50 km. Starting with a range of about 40 km to the target in the PPS, the Pakistani Mirage could well attack the MiG-25R with Super-530F / D air-to-air missiles. Moreover, the Mirages, in the event of a miss on a counter-intersecting trajectory (into the front hemisphere), could well have attacked the MiG in pursuit, because the speed of the first is nearly 2100 km / h with a pair of rockets on the suspension, and the Super-530F / D "And at all accelerate to 1480 m / s (5M), giving odds to many modern 4-fly air combat missiles.
Obviously, there is a flaw in the ground-based early warning radar of Pakistan's air defense, which, for unknown reasons, did not manage to timely detect the Indian MiG-25R and pick up Mirages armed with Super-530D missiles to intercept. The geographic factor also played in favor of the Indian pilots - Trisoniks. The distance from the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir to Islamabad is about 50 km; and, flying over its territory, the Indian reconnaissance officer simply made a sudden "detour" towards the capital of Pakistan. Possessing far from the best means of electronic intelligence, the Pakistani Air Force and Air Defense simply did not have time to take appropriate retaliatory measures, because the trajectory of the Indian Foxbat-B covered no more than 250 km of Pakistani airspace, which it covered in just 4-4.5 minutes. In those years, our legendary "stratospheric predator" successfully relied on its unsurpassed flight and technical capabilities, leaving far behind all the best 3rd generation fighter-interceptors during reconnaissance missions deep in enemy airspace.
By the end of the 90s. the Pakistani F-16A / B, according to unconfirmed information, received a number of AIM-7M medium-range guided missiles (up to 80 km), and already in the first decade of the 21st century, an arsenal of F-16A / B / C / D purchased by Pakistan was replenished with 500 units of new missiles with ARGSN AIM-120S-5 with a range of 105 km. Both types of missiles have the ability to attack high-speed targets with a large excess relative to the carrier, and therefore all the positive qualities of the high-altitude MiG-25R could not ensure a stable and safe operation. By the summer of 2006, the Indian Air Force removed all 13 MiG-25R / RU photo reconnaissance aircraft from service; at the same time, no worthy aviation complexes were found to replace old machines. The Su-30MKI entered service are equipped with an onboard radar with passive HEADLIGHTS N011M "Bars", capable of mapping the terrain at a distance of up to 200 km, but this mode is not a synthetic aperture (SAR) mode, and therefore to achieve a photographically clear radar image from these stations it is forbidden.
These capabilities are possessed by a more advanced airborne radar with PFAR N035 "Irbis-E", which is today the "core" of the weapons control system of the multipurpose Su-35S fighter. This product can be installed on the Indian Su-30MKI as part of the 2nd stage of modernization of the Sushki aircraft fleet, but the final agreement on the type of the new radar will be reached no earlier than 2019, and therefore the Indian Air Force command decided to play it safe, and, through the channels close military-technical cooperation between the Ministry of Defense of India and the Israeli aerospace corporation IAI, initiated a separate contract for the purchase of specialized container radar EL / M-2060P SAR / GMTI.
Suspended container radar system EL / M-2060P is a one-way high-energy waveguide-slotted antenna array (VSCHAR) for side-scan, placed in a large, slightly flattened radio-transparent suspended container. The left-side or right-side location of the antenna array is set before the flight in accordance with the geographic location of the enemy's reconnaissance territory. The grille has a 60º field of view with the possibility of mechanical reversal by approximately ± 20º, which forms a total field of view of 100º. The average consumed EL / M-2060P is 3 kW, the maximum is 4.3 kW, which makes it possible to scan the earth's surface with obtaining photographically clear images of the relief and targets on it at a distance of 170 km. Meanwhile, it should be noted that the VSCHAR does not allow obtaining a radar image with a resolution of 1-3 m, which is available for SAR radars with AFAR and PFAR such as "Irbis-E", AN / APG-77/81, AN / ZPY-2 (UAV RQ-4A) and AN / APY-3 (strategic aircraft E-8C "J-STARS"), and therefore it is unlikely that it will be possible to accurately identify enemy ground units (the estimated resolution of SHAR radars in SAR mode is more than 5 - 10 m).
To ensure stable operation at short and long ranges, the EL / M-2060P radar uses 3 operating frequency ranges of centimeter waves - C, X and Ku (the clearest images are created in the Ku-band). The radar has other modes of operation as well. One of them is GMTI, which allows detecting and tracking moving ground targets. There is also a hardware and software option to introduce the Inverse Aperture Synthesis (ISAR) mode. Its essence lies in the fact that a clear radar picture is formed not due to the movement of the aperture of the EL / M-2060 radar in space, but due to the movement of the irradiated mobile object performing pendulum-like movements characteristic of sea units and their structural elements (submarines, periscopes and snorkels Submarines, surface ships, etc.). The ISAR mode introduced in the EL / M-2060P "Airborne SAR Reconnaissance Pod" container radar can allow the Indian Su-30MKI to identify the composition of the Chinese naval strike groups much more quickly without the need to lift strategic anti-submarine P-8I "Neptune" into the air.
In the bow and tail compartments of the EL / M-2060P container radar from the ELTA subdivision, there are: an autonomous digital radar control controller, a radar information conversion device, and a MIL-STD-1553B standard data bus for synchronization with weapons control systems of numerous fighters of the “4 + / ++ ". The container is also equipped with an additional video output of the RS-170 (05 CCIR) type for displaying the radar image on the pilot's MFI and relaying it through tactical radio channels for exchanging information from the fighter to other friendly combat units. For direct exchange of tactical information with other ground, surface and air units, radio stations of the EL / K-1850 network-centric multi-band network are installed on the container radar. This network functions by analogy with the American "Link-16" in the L, S, C, X and Ku-bands of decimeter and centimeter waves. Noise immunity of tactical radio channels of this network is ensured by equipping subscribers with directional parabolic and flat antenna arrays. To minimize the probability of interception and decryption of the radio channel, the frequency hopping is used. Depending on the meteorological situation and the radio horizon, the effective range of the EL / K-1850 can reach 250 - 360 km. Due to the high speed of two-way information transfer (control commands and radar data packets), reaching 280 Mbit / s, as well as the autonomy of the EL / K-1850 module, the EL / M-2060Р radar complex can also be controlled remotely from a ground operator station, without involving a pilot or the carrier systems operator. If the crew is involved, a specialized on-board terminal EL / K-1865 (ADT) is used, designed to convert radar data into a video stream displayed on the MFI in the cockpit.
The radar complex is equipped with an advanced air cooling system, represented by a small nasal air intake with a protective mesh and a tubular air duct. The latter distributes the air flow between the compartments of the control and information conversion modules, as well as the main compartment with the EL / M-2060P radar. The weight of the entire container with the radar is only 590 kg, which is 2.47 times lighter than the 1818-liter external fuel tank for the F / A-18C Hornet carrier-based fighter: all sorts of weight and size restrictions on the placement of this container radar on the central suspension points of the Su-30MKI and LCA "Tejas Mk.1 / 2" are absent even with the simultaneous equipping of 2 large PTBs for reconnaissance operations within a radius of 1500 - 2000 km.
Taking into account the fact that the effective range of the compact container radar EL / M-2060P is only 25% inferior to such huge radars as AN / APY-3, its use as part of the Su-30MKI avionics will open up a mass of advantages, the main of which will be:
Despite the fact that the prototype and the first prototypes of the EL / M-2060P suspended container radar appeared in the first decade of the XXI century, and serial products are still built around a waveguide-slot antenna array, their technical potential remains at the proper level for conducting reconnaissance on territories of a well-armed potential enemy. For example, information about the presence of this type of radar in the arsenal of fighters of the Chinese Air Force has not yet been reported, and most of their "tacticians" (J-10A, J-11, Su-30MKK / MK2) continue to fly with Cassegrain radars, which are not capable of "Consider" the terrain in the synthetic aperture mode. After the fulfillment of the Israeli "ELTA" contract for the supply of the Indian Air Force EL / M-2060P, the Chinese Air Force will temporarily lose regional technological equality with the Indians: Beijing will begin to make up for lost time. Meanwhile, already now the radar with waveguide-slot antenna arrays is seriously inferior to the promising means of electronic warfare, which forces manufacturers to rapidly switch to stations with AFAR, and the EL / M-2060P is no exception.
