Air Weapons Complex

The Air Weapons Complex (reporting name:AWC) is a military research and development complex for the Pakistan Air Force, headquartered in Wah Cantonment, Punjab, Pakistan.^[1]

Air Weapons Complex
Founded	February 18, 1992; 33 years ago (1992-02-18)
Country	Pakistan
Branch	Pakistan Air Force
Type	Research and development
Role	Military science and technology
Part of	Joint Strategic Planning, JS HQ
Garrison/HQ	Wah Cantt, Punjab
Nickname	AWC
Commanders
Director-General	AVM Ghulam Shabbir

The AWC plays a pivotal role in air–borne weapons development and integration in aerospace war-fighting technologies for the Pakistan Air Force.^[2] Direction and weapons development guidance comes directly from the air force but the complex is managed and operated as a division under the civilian contract of National Engineering & Scientific Commission (NESCOM).^[1]

Overview

Since 1985, the Pakistan Air Force had been working warplans and wargames techniques on addressing the weapons delivery of nuclear discharges from the supersonic fighter jets.^{: 186 [3]} In February 1992, the Pakistan Air Force officially established the weapons research and development complex in cooperaton with the civilian Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) near the Metallurgical Laboratory in Wah Cantonment, an army base.^[4][5] The AWC embarked on studying the aerodynamics and developing software that specialized in advancing the airborne applications of direct-energy and explosive engineering.^[4][5]

In 1993, the AWC had an influential and pivotal role in helping to established the National Defence Complex (NDC) for the Pakistan Army.^{: 196–187} The AWC was a major weapons development complex in leading the designs and development of the nuclear variant air-launched cruise missiles (ALCM).^[6][7] As contrary to its army complex, the programs at the AWC have been under the Air Force's control since its inception, though the civilian National Engineering and Scientific Commission (NESCOM) does provides the management and technical services to the AWC as its prime contractor since 2001.^: 240

The AWC's current director-general is AVM, which is an equivalent of Major-General, Ghulam Shabbir.

Products

Airborne systems

• Airborne Video Tape Recorder (AVTR) system
• Airborne Digital Data Recorder system
• Infra-red search and track (IRST) system
• GNSS navigation system
• Mechanical gyro and iFOG-based inertial navigation system (INS)
• MOHAFIZ counter-measures dispensing system
• Laser guidance for Mk.80 series bombs (license-manufactured design from the US)^[8]

Air-launched weaponry

• Practice bombs (6 kg, 11 kg)
• 250 kg Pre-fragmented bomb
• 250 kg Mk.82 general-purpose bomb
• 500 kg Mk.83 bomb
• 1000 kg Mk.84 bomb
• Mk.80 series general-purpose bomb tail units (low drag or high drag speed-retarding devices)
• HAFR-1, HAFR-2^[9] and RPB-1 anti-runway weapons^[10]
• H-2 SOW
• H-4 SOW
• Ra'ad ALCM^[11]
• Ra'ad-II ALCM

Electronics

• Air Defence Automation System (C4I system) - given to Bangladesh, installed by AWC engineers circa 2005.^[12]
• Electronic fuses for air-launched weapons (impact and proximity fuses)
• Real-time ACMI system
• Voice/Fax/Data encryption system

Other

• Multi-Spectral Camouflage Net - camouflages against night-vision, infra-red, radar and millimeter wave sensors as well as visual detection. Stated to reduce an object's radar cross-section (RCS) by 86% on average and reduce average detection range by 43.8%.^[13]

Technical Expertise

• Software Development for Mission Critical Systems
• Nondestructive Testing Software and Mechanical Support
• Electronic System Design and Production
• Prototyping and Production of Specialized Mechanical Assemblies
• Mechanical Components Precision Manufacturing
• TQM Practices
• Mil-Spec Qualifications
• CAD/CAM Support^[4]

Software and UCAV development

Main article: NESCOM Burraq

Between 1988 and 1998, the AWC worked on developing the codes and systems engineering software that would be integrated with the fighter jets before dropping the nuclear discharges at the military targets.^{: 187–188} The successful weapons software integration was carried out in 1995 and its results were confirmed during a simulated military exercise.^{: 187–188}

In 1998, the AWC embarked on a robotics engineering project for the indigenous development of combat unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) with codenamed, the SKY TRACKER. The AWC developed Sky Tracker and Sky Navigator software suites were developed for the ground-based tracking of UAVs.^[5] The software retrieves the GPS position data from the UAV via a radio data-link 17 and uses it to show the position of the UAV as a 2D plot along with other essential data such as, speed, altitude, heading, and magnitudes.^[5] This plot can be overlaid onto area maps as well and this information is used by the pilot for flying the UAV from the ground-based command station.^[14][5]