North Korea’s New AEW&C ‘Flying Radar’ Indicates Major Fighter Fleet Modernisation Plans

New satellite footage has confirmed North Korea’s development of an airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) system based on one of its Il-76 heavy lift aircraft. The program is set to make the country the fourth operator of Il-76-based AEW&C after Russia, India and China, and could serve as an important force multiplier for the Korean People’s Army Air Force. AEW&C systems carry radars several times as large as those used by combat aircraft, and are valued for their ability to share data with fighters and ground-based assets including targeting data to facilitate more effective engagements of enemy aircraft.Investment in fielding a modern AEW&C provides a further indication that North Korea is renewing investments its military aviation capabilities, following strong signs of interest in procuring modern Russian fighter aircraft. North Korea’s current fighter fleet is considered largely obsolete, and is comprised primarily of Vietnam War era MiG-19 and MiG-21 fighters with a smaller elite of MiG-23ML and MiG-29 fighters. The limited air-to-air capabilities of this fleet limits the country’s ability to protect a high value asset like an AEW&C, and also limits the benefits of fielding such a force multiplier asset. Although development of an Il-76-based AEW&C could allow the country to better monitor its ballistic and cruise missile tests, gaining significant utility from such an asset would require the procurement of more capable fighters with modern sensors, missiles and data sharing capabilities.

After South Korean government sources reported in September that North Korean combat aviation pilots were dispatched to Vladivostok in the Russian Far East, speculation has grown that a fighter deal has been reached which will re-equip many of the Korean People’s Army Air Force’s older units. Although the commander of the United States Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM) Admiral Samuel Paparo in December reported that the North Korea was set to receive Russian MiG-29 and Su-27 fourth generation fighters, Pyongyang has shown signs of an interest in procuring more advanced ‘4+ generation’ and fifth generation fighters. Author of the recent book on North Korean security Surviving the Unipolar Era: North Korea’s 35 Year Standoff with the United States A. B. Abrams highlighted that Moscow had two primary means of providing fighters to North Korea. The first would be “to export fighters from classes the country already fields such as the MiG-29,” which it could be claimed were delivered before the embargo to “retain a degree of plausible deniability.” Regarding the second more controversial option, he elaborated:

“should North Korea acquire Russian combat aircraft other than MiG-29s, such as the more advanced Su-35 and Su-57 fighters recently inspected by its leader Kim Jong Un on a visit to Russia in September, these could be accompanied by Russian personnel at North Korean bases and presented as operating under a joint Russian-led unit – whatever the reality of the command structures under which they actually function. Such long range fighters, which are very easily capable of flying across Korea from airfields across the Russian border, could even be deployed between bases in the two countries to further this perception – while retaining duties such as interceptions of American bombers near the peninsula and flyovers during military parades in Pyongyang.”

The importance of AEW&Cs to aerial warfare efforts was recently demonstrated in the Ukrainian theatre, where Russian Su-35 fighters relied heavily on support from A-50U systems to engage Ukrainian targets using long range R-37M air-to-air missiles. A-50Us were also relied on to allow ground based air defence systems to achieve 400 kilometre range kills at low altitudes against Ukrainian fighters, with the systems effectively providing the targeting data needed to fire over the earth’s curvature. This has significant implications for North Korea, which could use its new AEW&C system to augment both its advanced ground based air defence systems and its expected new fighters. The much smaller size of North Korea’s territory, at around 0.7 percent the size of Russia’s own, allows even a single AEW&C to provide significant coverage. The signifiant advances demonstrated by East Asian state’s defence sector across multiple areas indicates that the radar and other avionics for the new AEW&C may have been developed largely independently, although support from Russia has been widely speculated due to its well established familiarity with converting Il-76 aircraft into AEW&Cs.