Pakistan will acquire three new Saab Erieye AEW&C

The Pakistan Air Force confirmed that the air arm is set to receive three new Saab 2000 Erieye airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft. The first will be delivered in December and the remaining pair will arrive next year.

They will boost the PAF’s AEW&C fleet, which is currently made up of three Erieyes serving 3 Squadron and four ZDK-03s with 4 Squadron.

On the other hand Saab issued a press release on May 15 announcing that it had signed an AEW&C contract worth SEK 1.35bn (£120m), with deliveries being made from 2017 until 2020. It will not disclose the customer, as is its usual policy, but it is likely this is the same deal.

The Saab 340 AEW&C is a Swedish airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft; a variant of the Saab 340 aircraft is designated S 100B Argus by the Swedish Air Force.

The Erieye radar system, is an Airborne Early Warning and Control System (AEW&C) developed by Saab Electronic Defence Systems (formerly Ericsson Microwave Systems) of Sweden. It uses active electronically scanned array (AESA) technology. The Erieye is used on a variety of aircraft platforms, such as the Saab 340 and Embraer E-99. It has recently been implemented on the Bombardier Global 6000 aircraft.

The United Arab Emirates is also a customer of Saab products. In November 2015, it placed an order for the GlobalEye system. The UAE ordered two aircraft equipped with a variety of AEW&C systems at a cost of $1.27 billion.

The PAF originally ordered four Saab 2000-based Erieye AEW&C in 2006. It had planned to acquire six, but the Kashmir Earthquake of 2005 resulted in a reduced order. Instead of six Erieye, the PAF augmented its four Erieye with four ZDK03 AEW&C – designated Karakoram Eagle – from China.

In August 2012, three of the four Erieye were heavily damaged in a terrorist attack on Minhas Air Base, which was at the time housing the No. 3 AEW&C Squadron. By 2016, Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC) managed to restore two of the damaged aircraft. This new Erieye order will effectively replace the written-off unit as well as raise the PAF’s Erieye fleet to its originally planned force of six.

This order will raise Pakistan’s overall AEW&C fleet to 10 aircraft. However, in the mid-2000s the Pakistan Navy and PAF originally planned to acquire a total of nine AEW&C aircraft – i.e. six Saab 2000-based Erieye and three P-3 Orion-based Hawkeye 2000. The PAF could be aiming for that strength level, but with the ZDK03 in place of the Hawkeye 2000.