Kim Jong Un showcases North Korea’s first radar aircraft
North Korea has flown its first Airborne Early Warning & Control (AEW&C) aircraft, a former Koryo Air Ilyushin Il-76 freighter that was converted in-house.
To unveil the new asset, the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, flew to Pyongyang International Airport, where he also unveiled surveillance drones and unmanned attack aircraft.
The radar aircraft’s existence was known from satellite photos, but images released by North Korean state media revealed that its radar is not rotating, despite its circular shape.
It is a fixed antenna similar to that used by Chinese KJ-2000 jets. The Beriev A-50, which Russia operates on the same Il-76 platform, has rotating antennas.
Another point that caught the attention of observers was the absence of antennas and other sensor-related protrusions, which may indicate that the plane is not yet finished.
Kim Jong Un visited the interior of the aircraft, where several workstations and flat screens on the sides of the fuselage were seen.
Lack of datalink
North Korea has been working on the radar aircraft since at least 2023 and it will be a great asset to the air force in order to obtain more efficient radar coverage than ground stations.
However, it is unclear to what extent target detection would be useful without an integrated datalink system on North Korean fighters. The most modern aircraft in the fleet, the MiG-29, does not have such a feature, as far as is known.
Its neighbor, South Korea, in turn, operates four Boeing E-7 Wedgetail with synthetic aperture AESA radars, as well as 5th generation fighters such as the Lockheed F-35A Lightning II.
About the Author
Ricardo Meier
Creator of the website that started in 1996 as a magazine. He also writes on Brazilian websites AUTOO, MOTOO and MetrôCPTM.
