ZDK-03 Karakoram Eagle AWACS inducted in Pakistan Air Force Squadron 4

[Bratva]

Current latency is about 16 seconds.....not bad for Indo-Pak scenarios as outside of AEW, multiple other radar sensors exist to gather data, plus the close proximity is a blessing.



Higher performing AESA with more frequency spectrums, more tr's, advanced detection, different SAR modes and advanced countermeasures with 3D aerial / airspace mapping like the Boeing / Grumman / LM platforms do.

But Vh bees AEW should be a better option for Pakistan long term, you can learn advanced tech and one day produce these like India is about to do today. In the next 5 years, Chinese tech in AEW may be equal to or superior to Saab's. Chinese are making serious head ways with high speed / super computing types of stuff and that's the main thing requires in a radar scenarios.

Wherever you heard that 16 second latency, it's unverifiable and I would consider it rubbish 5 second or more is considered worst cast scenario in Net-centric warfare.

 

[IceCold]

I also hope that in future PAF will protect it's assets very carefully. It was terrorist proxies who did the damage at Kamra. The P3C Orion was shot down by Indians when it was flying to close to the Indian border or It might have crossed in to Indian border. I saw a video on TV about Indians picking up its pieces so it must have fallen in Indian territory.

P3C were also destroyed in an attack on our naval base. The responsibility was latter accepted by TTP.

 

[Super Falcon]

Very well done to paf think tank paf more better in thinking than navy when comes to chosing abd inducting latest weapons anyway can anyone tell me real specs of this silent eagle with our other erieye which is best and what difference it gives with roundel antenta compare to vertical antena which erieye ha

 

[انگریز]

Erieye had "locked" software / electronics. ZDK-03 has unlocked and open architecture software / electronics.
That meand any addition, alteration on Erieye is not possible but Pakistan can add new sensors or upgrade software at home on ZDK-03

 

[salman-1]

Radar range of Saab is 300-315 km clear weather where ZDK with electronic scan in Air to Air is 400 km and Air to ground is 350 approximate.

 

[Super Falcon]

So zdk is as good as phalcon and i heared china is building next gen awacs system similar to russian A 100 programme of awacs why pak do not wait for more newer and advance system zdk is best in its class

 

[Basel]

American F-16's have Link 16, it's tactical communication between and only for American weapon platforms.

America isn't going to let anyone into the coding for this link, as to why Pakistan bought the ZDK AWACs.

Saab is for the F-16s and other American/ NATO platforms. I think Chinese platforms have JTIDS?

Pakistan was working on a third party system allowing Erieye to communicate with JF-17 and other jets and same for ZDK to be able to communicate with F-16, the con of it is that it will delay data relay for few seconds due to having a intermediate system in between two systems and Pakistan have also developed its own data link called Raabta.

 

[Viper0011.]

Wherever you heard that 16 second latency, it's unverifiable and I would consider it rubbish 5 second or more is considered worst cast scenario in Net-centric warfare.

Came directly out of the Horse's mouth.....and Horses never lie. And you now have to figure out who this "horse" was.

BTW, I don't post anything that's not verified twice.
Also, I don't know how much experience you have in this field, but a rotating EScan radar, due to two AESA rotating, already has about a 3-5 seconds worth of latency with it's circle (360 degrees). THEN, the information is parsed to the Ground Control Units, which, in this case, will be decoding information from the Chinese data links for display on their monitors.

But then, a part of another Western system receives this data also and encrypts it into Link 16 format to transmit to any Link 16 jets out there. And then, the -16's or whatever Western option you may have, get this data and further decrypt it so the pilot can see. If you add these 3-4 steps and add 3-5 seconds worth of delay, it comes up to 12-20 seconds latency. 16 seconds was right on and makes perfect sense (in other words, the Horse is ALWAYS right).

So zdk is as good as phalcon and i heared china is building next gen awacs system similar to russian A 100 programme of awacs

Absolutely not, ZDK is NOT better than Phalcon at all. I'd say 70% as capable. Which is good enough for the purpose it has in Pakistan. I am sure future versions will add more features, taking it closer to the Phalcon.

Russian A100 program is an older system. Chinese IMO are actually ahead in AWACS / AEW tech than the Russians. They already have a lot more variety than Russia could ever produce in this area. However, China still has to catch up to the Western tech as there are significant differences between the two platforms and capabilities.

 

[Super Falcon]

What about their antena deiferences why they are roundel and horizental any details on them

Thank u dear for info but can zdk track sea targets as well and what about we lost one erieye in terror attack do pak ordered one more to fill its lost aircraft because if we had 4 and now 3 we are giving one space free to india in skies

 

[Dr. Strangelove]

I also hope that in future PAF will protect it's assets very carefully. It was terrorist proxies who did the damage at Kamra. The P3C Orion was shot down by Indians when it was flying to close to the Indian border or It might have crossed in to Indian border. I saw a video on TV about Indians picking up its pieces so it must have fallen in Indian territory.

that was Breguet Atlantique not p3c orion
Atlantique incident - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Imtiaz_Sarwar]

that was Breguet Atlantique not p3c orion
Atlantique incident - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Thank you for your correction. I have made changes to my post accordingly. I got the name wrong but I was referring to the fact that Indians shot our plane and we could do nothing about it..

 

[hassan1]

 

[انگریز]

Zdk-03 has ELINT, SIGINT
Thats something PAF Erieye don't have.

 

[SQ8]

Came directly out of the Horse's mouth.....and Horses never lie. And you now have to figure out who this "horse" was.

BTW, I don't post anything that's not verified twice.
Also, I don't know how much experience you have in this field, but a rotating EScan radar, due to two AESA rotating, already has about a 3-5 seconds worth of latency with it's circle (360 degrees). THEN, the information is parsed to the Ground Control Units, which, in this case, will be decoding information from the Chinese data links for display on their monitors.

But then, a part of another Western system receives this data also and encrypts it into Link 16 format to transmit to any Link 16 jets out there. And then, the -16's or whatever Western option you may have, get this data and further decrypt it so the pilot can see. If you add these 3-4 steps and add 3-5 seconds worth of delay, it comes up to 12-20 seconds latency. 16 seconds was right on and makes perfect sense (in other words, the Horse is ALWAYS right)..

Which Horse would this be? Considering I was two desks away at one point from where all of this was in play, the latency issues were the least of the problem. However, the Data is not going to end up in Ground Control and instead going to be processed on-board into Link-16 format for direct Tx to clients within its AO. The idea was to skip that latency problem with the ground stations and allow the ZDK to work directly with the F-16s and Orions. The Erieye can already feed everyone in the net now so that is not an issue. The problem was to remove Link-16s limitations on specific key nodes and instead have some features prescribed for link-22 such as Auto-relay and distributed protocols.
But then, this was 2011.. so things should have moved forward by then.

 

[Viper0011.]

Which Horse would this be? Considering I was two desks away at one point from where all of this was in play, the latency issues were the least of the problem. However, the Data is not going to end up in Ground Control and instead going to be processed on-board into Link-16 format for direct Tx to clients within its AO. The idea was to skip that latency problem with the ground stations and allow the ZDK to work directly with the F-16s and Orions. The Erieye can already feed everyone in the net now so that is not an issue. The problem was to remove Link-16s limitations on specific key nodes and instead have some features prescribed for link-22 such as Auto-relay and distributed protocols.
But then, this was 2011.. so things should have moved forward by then.

1) This is the Horse that never lies
2) The Data was being transported through the GC stations till March of 2013. Its as confirmed as the dawn every morning.
3) The idea has ALWAYS been to skip the latency issue all together. But then Link 16 isn't an open standard that is easy to crack open or integrated with others. There was a LOT that happened behind the scenes to get access to Tx/Rec protocols for the Chinese.
4) The Erieye couldn't feed the Chinese systems. Their platform was proprietary and to a degree where even the Western systems at times had issues in dealing with Erieye in certain modes in is early days on Embraer platforms. Which is when, the Swedes decided to use American components in their system compared to their own and French.
5) I think I am talking 2013.....may be since then the solution was developed (which I referred to as an external device) for the JFT and ZDK's. The Horse hasn't talked about this since 2013 so I assume this is when all this was fixed and settled.

What about their antena deiferences why they are roundel and horizental any details on them

Round antenna theoretically gives you closer to 360 degree coverage due to the radius it covers. The Horizontal provides main-lobe, and side-lobe coverage north of 150 degrees and south of 200 degrees. So with a horizontal antenna, the plane will always need to fly parallel to the border of your enemy to provide main lobe coverage.

The secondary Beam Concentrated Regions will be covered through the black-lobe of the frequency hopping spectrum, and it will always face the other side, in this case, the Pakistani side. With horizontal antenna, your flight envelop changes to a specific pattern majority of the time during regular missions. Horizontal Beam Transmission (aka, HBT) in an AESA means you could have side-lobe gaps too when compared to a Round antenna (AESA also). So in general terns, the better option is the Round antenna, specifically the ones deployed on US AWACS and on Israeli Phalcons (three AESA's fixed, no rotation, no lobe issues and proper coverage almost 360 degrees). Pakistani ZDK isn't too far from an operational stand point, but it is obviously a lower tech with some latency (2-3 seconds) because the two AESA's rotate. But its good enough for the purpose its created for, in Pakistan's case.