Monday, July 3 2006 17:27 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Glasgow: India has decided to follow Nato countries in opting to upgrade its fighter-based tactical aerial spying by installing new surveillance systems in its deep penetration strike fighters, Jaguars.

The Indian Air Force (IAF) has floated international tenders for a 40 million pounds programme to install reconnaissance airborne pods on its Jaguar fighters.

European defence major Thales with its Vicon 18 GP1 pods is one of the major bidders for the sale 12 such systems to India.

The new Vicon 18 GP1 has the capability to penetrate even bad weather conditions and carry out rear time low flying imagery. These systems have recently been installed by the Royal Air Force (RAF) in their Tornado GR1 fighters as well as new series of Harrier mark 9 fighters.

The RAF has successfully used these pods to carry out tactical low level reconnaissance in recent operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The new pods would enable the fighters to penetrate even in bad weather conditions and highlight details of ground images including tank tracks, heavily wooded areas and camouflaged targets.

The Thales Optronics (Vicon) joint-reconnaissance pods has highly sophisticated airborne gadgets which allow to undertake reconnaissance missions for three to four hours.

"Management of the new GRP is fully integrated into the Jaguar aircraft software which facilitates full integration with the MFD, HUD and helmet systems to provide the Jaguar pilot with an optamised pilot interface," according to officials of Thales Air defence systems.

Besides Thales nine other major US and Israeli companies are competing for the deal.