India's indigenous airborne early warning and control system should be operational by 2011, the Defence Research & Development Organisation said on Friday.
"We hope to make the AEW&C operational within six to six-and-half-years," Electronics and Radar Development Establishment Director K U Limaye said.
The Centre for Airborne Systems, DRDO's Bangalore-based unit, has revived the airborne early warning system programme, which was scrapped in 1999 following a crash of the rotodome radar-fitted Avro aircraft near Arakkonam in Chennai.
Eight people, including four scientists, were killed in the crash.
Limaye was heading CABS when the Centre revived the Rs 1,800-crore project.
"There was an emotional setback when we lost the people in the crash. But much of the work in the earlier model is being used in the new programme," DRDO chief M Natarajan said.
Denying that India had chosen a Brazalian Embraer aircraft for integrating the radar, he said talks were on with several jet makers in the world.
Early this week, Embraer said it had signed a memorandum of understanding with BRD to sell three of its executive jets for the AEW&Cs and that both the agencies were working on studying the technical specification for the project.
"Anybody can issue a press release, but so far we have not confirmed any aircraft," Natarajan said.
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