Recently, the AWACS aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces can be said to have been pushed to the forefront. In a month and a half, the Russian army lost two A-50U AWACS aircraft, each of which cost as much as 3300 million US dollars, along with the loss of AWACS aircraft and more than 30 pilots, electronic warfare experts and a lieutenant general, this loss can be described as huge! In the face of this heavy loss, Russia has now also announced the resumption of the production plan of the A-50 AWACS aircraft to make up for the war damage. This was confirmed by the head of Rostec Sergei Chemezov in an interview, claiming that despite the twists and turns, the army still needs AWACS. 
The A-50 early warning aircraft is a four-engine early warning command aircraft modified by the Russian Ilyushin Design Bureau on the basis of the Il-76 military transport aircraft, and is used as a successor to the Tu-126 early warning aircraft. On the basis of the original Il-76 military transport aircraft, the A-50 is equipped with an airborne early warning radar with downward vision capability, and the front fuselage has been lengthened, and its most obvious feature is that the back of the fuselage behind the wing is equipped with a radar radome with a diameter of 9 meters, and its radar range can reach 400-600 kilometers. However, taking into account the backward level of the Soviet electronics industry, the real performance of the A-50 is still lagging behind the American E-3A AWACS aircraft of the same period. 
Although more than 50 A-30 AWACS aircraft were produced, the Russian Air Force was unable to maintain so many AWACS aircraft after the collapse of the Soviet Union, so in the end only 19 were put into service, and the rest were left aside or turned into organ donors in service with the A-50. At present, the available fleet size of Russian A-50 early warning aircraft has been maintained at the level of about 15 aircraft, which is simply unable to achieve all-weather air early warning support for such a large country. In addition, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the A-50 has not been upgraded in technology, and Russia has put forward a new generation of early warning aircraft development plan in the new century, of course, the Il-76 transport aircraft is still selected as the carrying platform, after all, Russia has no other choice, and later launched an improved A-50U early warning aircraft. 
As an upgraded version of the A-50 AWACS aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces, the A-50U enhanced its detection capabilities for low-altitude, low-speed and stealth targets, and made its first flight in 2011 and was delivered to the Russian Aerospace Forces. The A-50U AWACS aircraft effectively solves the problems of noise interference and ultra-high frequency radiation, reduces the weight of the fuselage and increases the range. The A-50U early warning aircraft has a maximum take-off weight of 210 tons, a maximum level flight speed of 850 kilometers per hour, can climb to an altitude of 9 kilometers, has the ability to detect targets within a range of 800 kilometers, can carry out uninterrupted aerial reconnaissance for six hours, and has an effective combat range of 7,500 kilometers. In addition, the A-50U has an in-flight refueling capability, which can further improve the combat cruise time in the air. 
However, in the Russian-Ukrainian war, two A-50U early warning aircraft have crashed, one is said to have been shot down by the Ukrainian "Patriot" missile, and the other was accidentally shot down by the Russian army's own anti-aircraft missile after being interfered with by the S-200 anti-aircraft missile launched by the Ukrainian army. What's even worse is that the total number of A-50U in service since it was installed is only in single digits, so now Russia has also decided to resume the production of a batch of A-50 early warning aircraft to make up for war losses, and at the same time further improve the performance of A-50U, upgrade the electronic countermeasure system, and improve its survivability in the face of anti-aircraft missiles. 
Of course, after the A-50U, Russia is also developing a more advanced A-100 early warning aircraft, the early warning aircraft A-100 early warning aircraft has been improved and upgraded on the basis of the Il-76MD-90A military transport aircraft, and its airborne radar adopts a unique double-sided array design, one of which is an S-band radar, and the other is a specially optimized UHF-band anti-stealth radar, which can effectively detect all kinds of ** targets. The A-100 AWACS completed its maiden flight on November 18, 2017, and is hailed as one of the best AWACS aircraft of its kind in the world. In addition to various functions such as intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, early warning and command, the A-100 early warning aircraft can also detect stealth equipment such as fifth-generation fighters. According to reports, Russia plans to equip about 40 A-100 AWACS aircraft to replace the aging A-50 and its upgraded A-50U AWACS aircraft. In addition, the development and testing of the A-100 AWACS aircraft is scheduled to be completed in 2024, after which mass production will begin. However, at present, the production of A-100 is seriously constrained by the production capacity of the Il-76MD-90A, and the Russian army can no longer afford to wait for the delivery speed of the A-100, so it has no choice but to re-produce the A-50 early warning aircraft with worse performance. 
The head of Rostec, Sergei Chemezov, speaking about the production of the A-50, also specifically mentioned that "of course, our army not only needs it, but also exports it well." It is implied that the A-50 early warning aircraft will also be exported, but now the loss of two A-50 early warning aircraft in a row has made the Russian army lose face, and its real performance is also controversial. In addition, there are not many countries in the world that can afford to play large early warning aircraft, these countries either have the ability to develop more advanced early warning aircraft, or can buy more advanced early warning aircraft than A-50, such as E767, E7 and other models, so the only customer that A-50 can export is India, but obviously, India, which has been cheated by Russia many times in the military trade, will not be fooled again. **10,000 Fans Incentive Plan