Calvin Bailey MP has raised alarm over the UK’s troubled E-7 Wedgetail airborne early warning programme, warning of “a pretty major risk” amid delays, reduced orders and doubts over US commitment.
Speaking in the Defence Committee on Thursday, Bailey said: “E-7, we were going to buy five. Then three. They’re horrendously late, overpriced. We’ve got one in with a special clearance, which means there’s something that we don’t know about that means it can’t have a normal clearance. The Americans have pulled their commitment to the programme and Boeing appear ambivalent.”
Defence Secretary John Healey declined to discuss the programme in detail in public session. “Mr. Bailey, if you’ve got a series of questions about Wedgetail in particular… if you can supply them through the clerk, then I will answer them,” he said, offering instead to arrange a closed-door departmental briefing.
Bailey responded that a follow-up discussion had not yet happened despite the Committee being previously briefed behind closed doors: “There’s a pretty major risk to the programme.”
The exchange underscores growing unease about the fate of the UK’s reduced E-7 fleet, a platform intended to replace the now-retired E-3D Sentry as Britain’s primary airborne early warning and control capability.
Originally a five-aircraft buy, the Wedgetail fleet was cut to three in 2021 to save money. At least one aircraft is now undergoing modifications in the UK but has yet to receive standard military clearances.
Neither the Defence Secretary nor MoD officials provided new assurances on cost, timeline or operational viability in the open session.
Surely not at Nimrod AEW and MRA4 level all over again?
I’d hope they’d put up a really big tarp when cutting these up, bad optics seeing that kind of thing.
As we have 5 radar sets bought and paid for, an alternative buy is probably out of the question. Disposal or shaking the magic money tree until it’s passable would be the only options I’d think.
I would I imagine not Nimrod AEW was a root and branch disaster… the airframe to small, power issues, the radar was shite and not able to do the job, the computer was shite and not able to do the job, they used the fuel tanks as a heat sink..which was the most stupid idea imaginable….
This is a proven radar, proven airframe.. with a providence.. what they have here are teething issues and a stupid polical decision to save money in year buy cutting programme numbers so increasing the cost of individual units.
They couid have given us something in the SDR.
As you often say, the cheapish giveaways that might be small in number but offer such an uplift.
More Ch3, 3 more P8, the 2 extra E7. Booms on Voyagers.
We get nothing but 12 F35A which even the reviewer Lord Robertson dismissed.
I do agree I really don’t understand this government at all to be honest. They seem to be determined to self flagellate by not taking easy wins and doing things that piss people off.
But those 12 F35A’s are in place of 12 B’s so actually nothing extra.
“Planes and boats and trains”.
Is that actually confirmed as jet or just quite rightly presumed unless it’s denied. I think we all know it’s true and why it was so easy to announce as something superficially new when it is simply a sideways manoeuvre. As I said before doesn’t bode well if their tactics are so transparent to anyone giving even just an occasional glance. Sadly seems indicative of their policy forming generally, smoke and mirrors to the fore, the only thing that comes cheap.
Indeed.
My point was that those, and the mythical 12 SSN when we’re all dead, maybe, if another government pays, were the headline grabbers
No commitment to anthing beyond talking and moving the % upwards by cooking the books..
Yes Spy, seen it in official announcements.
27 tranche 2 as planned, only the types change slightly.
Leaves 62 B, not all of which can be used, and the political 12A, which at least make training cheaper if they have greater availability.
They’ll still need Bs for that too so they’re not all free from the OCU.
Provenance I think you mean!
Indeed I do
The Nimrod AEW radar was actually too good. The problem they had was the signal processing and the syncing between the forward and aft antennas. “On the ground” the system performed better than expected. Even when using the Comet 4 test aircraft, the single nose fitted radar should significant promise. Sadly putting the complete system into the Nimrod airframe was a step too far. I have a mate who was a radar engineer on that program. He does lament on where the program was going and the decision of using Nimrod.
Using an aircraft’s fuel as a cooling medium has been used since the 1960’s.
The big problem with the UK Wedgetails is the Company doing the conversion work, who are subcontracted via Boeing. The STS Aviation Group are not a new Company. But the UK branch has had no previous military experience of converting an airframe. So all arising engineering issues have to go to Boeing for their decisions, which delays the program. Originally Marshalls of Cambridge were contracted to do the airframe conversion. But they pulled out, where a little bird told me they had a major fallout with Boeing over engineering practices and certification. STS Aviation did not have enough skilled people initially to do the work and have subsequently built up the SQEP. But this takes time!
Thanks Davey. Keith Hampson M.P. claimed AEW Nimrod ‘worked’. The story is Arnold Weinstock chair of G.E.C. fell out with Thatcher who swivelled towards the Americans and Ronald Reagan. I believe our national U.K. problem is trying to ride two horses at once: Domestic innovation, design and manufacture versus the pressure as the Civil Service and Ministries see it as fitting in with N.A.T.O. and the U.S. giant as an alternative national strategy. This Wedgetail option seems like another ill fated compromise. Fortunately our only current external threat is too busy loosing a war elsewhere.
I don’t think Trump does Noblesse Oblige.
Truly,The Donald has what might be categorized as a Laissez Faire attitude/philosophy toward many issues.
There is no much doubt about US commitment. The programme is terminated.
It seems US wants only E2D that can take off and land in very short runways and space based detection.
Another point are the 1000km range SAM’s and AAM’s that are expected to arrive in 10 years.
As soon as the order was cut to 3, Boeing went luke warm over the project, the MOD was trying to get concessions out of Boeing who saw no profit in ng conversions.
Now as a result of penny pinching from the bean counters we are stuck with a white elephant.
The same old play book.
I can see a very expensive cancellation how it can be spun is anyone’s guess.
Well for a start, UK went with used airframes. Boeing doesn’t get to sell 3 new airframes. UK reduces order from 5 to 3. Boeing doesn’t get an order for 2 extra new airframes or even two more conversions to help spread costs.. Seriously, why expect Boeing to be bending over backwards to make this work. They will do the minimum the contract lets them get away with. Boeing is little different to BAE. Always trying to get the cheapest possible means you end up with no margin for either side to play with. Governments are one of the few that tend to take the lowest quote rather than the “best quote”. And no, they aren’t the same.
How can this project go south? Both the Australians and Turkish have them. NATO may buy them.
Proven Airframe, proven kit how can it all go so wrong?
With HMG, anything can.
Because ours ‘ arn’t the same’ as the Australian or Turkish aircraft, why you ask?
Where would the fun in that be, we use different classified ‘magic sauce’ in ours apparently, instead of simply getting the Australians to build 5 more at exactly tbe same spec that we could have upgraded in lockstep with our allies, we decided to reinvent the wheel, obviously just not gold plated enough to start with!
They will now carry on chucking money at it, possibly get two more and throw another couple of billion at it in 10 years to counter obsolescence, struggle to make that work etc, etc.
The French are very sensibly buying true off the shelf SAAB AWAC systems.
Its what we do in the UK…
I think the French refer to it as ‘the Anglo- Saxon agony’. We just like punishing ourselves.
Not enough Pork to throw at the MIC. More, we want more!
As ever, we are in lockstep on this mate…
I would have hit the pause button the moment Marshalls backed away. I would have got the Australians to build them in exactly the same spec as theirs and pooled our upgrade plans and resources.
We now have three bespoke E7’s to support, one suspects they will be the gift that keeps giving!!!
Australia converted 4, S Korea & Turkey converted 3 each, the others (4) were converted by Boeing US as lead aircraft to all 3 nations (note, E7 was an Australian financed aircraft). UK version is nothing extra that is not already being rolled out to Australian E7’s followed by Turkey & S.Korea. US E7 are the ones that have suffered from USAF gold plating (hence massive price variation).
And the South Koreans and the Brits and the Yanka. Oh wait, time to rephrase that as USAF has summarily been deprived of an essential capability. The service is saluting and following orders, but willing to wager the farm that there are many unhappy campers as a result of this decision. Not even certain there is a viable Plan B available, when the inevitable development delays in space are borne systems are revealed. Excuse us RAAF, RAF, etc. would you kindly loan us your E-7s? 🙄. As the immortal cartoon character famously stated: “We have met the enemy, and they is us.” 🤔😳😱😤🤬
Even worse they now want to deport the only guy with a rocket company that might be able to lift enough satellites into space to actually provide satellite based MTI.
That’s what happens when the guy from the apprentice teams up with the weekend Fox News host and try’s to run the most powerful nation on earth
History in the making 😀
Ever seen the film “don’t look up!”. Sums it up beautifully.
Will the 3 that we have bought do a job for us?
Eventually Paul, once double the budget and time have been expended….
And only if the other 2 get built. These (along with the P8), tend to follow naval ship norms. Want 1 in the air, you need 3. Want 2, you need 6. Five will get you 2 most of the time etc etc.
Maybe the international man of super diplomacy two Tier Kier can jump on an aircraft and sod off to the States to use a bit of that amazing diplomatic skills he has in order to save the project? But if he’s busy maybe send Reparations Lammey, cry baby Racheal or knocked up at 16 Rayner? I’m sure they could do a cracking job over there with their international renown…….😂💩!
Like a moronic fuckwit like you knows anything about diplomacy .. or anything else for that matter 🤡🤣
Ah haven’t heard from you for a while, Iranian troll sites back on line i see, or did mum come back from C Coy accom and give you the internet password again.
Airborne,
Quite willing to trade our current SecDef and political appointees for Big Ben Wallace and his staff. Hell, even willing to organize a Go Fund Me campaign to provide a financial incentive for the trade. Prediction: This clusterflock termination of USAF E-7 program will cause significant harm to USAF..
I’ve seen quite a few exUSAF say WTF over this decision and the “jackanory” that was the performance given to the Defence Committee as to the reasons why. Personally I think there is more to it. Something like Boeing aircraft division will have too many aircraft programs and somebody doesn’t like it, or they are seriously upset with Boeing’s lacklustre performance in sorting the KC46s.
There faith in future space based detection and tracking systems, is perhaps the most questionable aspect. It’s like the situation where the UK were planning on building a radar network, that covered the whole of the UK in the 1950’s and then the US invented the Carcinotron Jammer. That overnight rendered the radar network useless. Which in this context for a space based detection system, means their orbital paths are predictable and non-deviating. Thereby making them easier to target either through jamming, directed energy weapons or kinetically. I get the thoughts on why you would want to look at a space based system. As a radar for example would be pointing down and looking at the top surface of an aircraft. Where the radar absorbent material (RAM) is thinner, so the radar “should” be able to detect the aircraft easier. But the feasibility of putting a decent hi-fidelity radar in space and powering it, with the signal processing presumingly done via ground stations. Hmm, that’s bit of an ask. I know the US have managed to use a low earth satellite quite a few years ago to track an F15 using IR. But if memory serves it was flying at 50,000ft and using its afterburner. Technology has moved on since then, but I still have reservations on it being able to track say a cruise missile flying close to the ground.
Although the E2D is an awesome AEW platform, it is not a E7 Wedgetail. I really don’t see the merits of acquiring more E2Ds over the Wedgetail. The Wedgetail has so many advantages, in a game of top trumps its not even close.
To be fair the Northrop Grumman MESA radar is airframe agnostic, so it could be installed on an Airbus A320 for example. Though this probably too late for the UK program.
DaveyB,
Hmmm …political intrigue in a manner analogous to palace intrigue during the Roman Empire? That may be the most logical explanation offered to date. Some decisions are merely inconvenient, some truly costly. Three guesses which category this one is in. 😱☹️
How very adult of you Airborne. Whatever the problems in this project 99% of it will have been under the previous Administration, I guess you will be blaming them for HS2 and COVID next.
Hey Spy read my post prior to talking chuff! Where in my post did I blame these crop of clowns? I stated they may be able to use their amazing renown diplomacy skills to save it! Go on have another read, good lad.
Surely we have the radars, we can buy the aircraft and there are numerous European aviation companies Marshall’s spring to mind to integrate the two.
The American space based radar is at least a decade away probably more. Their own AWACS is very long in the tooth .
Further there must be other countries who have order the wedgetail.
I seem to remember that Marshalls were originally the installer and integrators, and that they decided that they wanted out of the military business. I would be interested to know how many 737 ng’s are around in the second hand civil market, I suspect quite a few, and we know two radars have been paid for. What, other than commitment, do we need to get the programme to 5units?
Very few ngs available there’s a 4000 737 order backlog at boeing…
Certainly new airframes, the only ng production now is for E7 and P8 modification. But there are at least two 737-800’s stored at Cotswold airport, if they haven’t got too many hours they could perhaps be given a heavy overhaul and got up to a suitable standard. More cost effective in the long run than the alternative.
The problem is E7 is certified on a 737-700 BBJ. This aircraft has 737-800 wings on a 737-700 airframe & uprated heavy duty landing gear. BBJ is Boeing Business Jet. While Boeing sold thousands of 737-700 & 737-800 commercial jets, BBJ were a niche market. So your 737-800 are of limited use (perhaps you could turn them into P8’s?). Everything away from standard costs more in both time & money. Even Boeing, who are still building many more new 737-800 for P8 conversions than 737-700 for E7 conversions are not interested, even though it would simplify their 737 military production line.
The Australians and Turks I believe have flown these for years, so very concerning that what should have been a safe proven platform is proving so be anything but. Imagine the implications for far less proven projects, doesn’t bear thinking about. We can only speculate as to the reasons but clearly something is different to the previous ones that entered service a decade of more back. Has some of the electronics or support mechanisms had to be updated since those days and proving problematical? The airframes have presented problems (availability, cost, rebuilding the skills needed to adapt them) but one presumes are not fundamentally different to the ones previously used and even Boeing must surely retain the skill base required to pass on. So why this has become as complicated as it has is difficult to comprehend, in essence it was selected because it was ‘proven’ technology.
I agree. When we went with the wedge tail, I was pleased because for once we were not dying our usual trick and developing from scratch while specifying the earth or bringing off the shelf and demand it is modified to perform miracles,
It was known, it was off the shelf and it was proven.
So the “ problems” surprise me. I seem to recall only one airframe was to be used the rest would be brand new, so the Americans going cold and wanting some Trumpian “ Silver tower” SBR should not effect deliver of the units. ( upgrades maybe) remember wedgetail was not developed by the US , it was developed for the Aussies,
Either way we have a legal contract with Boeing for the aircraft, so dear Boeing, fulfil your contract or see you in court Mush!!!
The UK is currently being run by a bunch of former student activists. Totally useless. Almost as bad as the Tory twats that preceded them!
Can’t really blame the current government, it was the last that placed the order and then cut it and its trump that is causing the rest of the issues.
Yep, if indeed the programme is having issues (which we do not actually know) then part of that is down to the previous government ordering 5 then cutting it to an ridiculous 3. The current government seem equally as incompetent and waiting in the wings is a remain party run by a bunch of trump like chancers that only know how to say things people want to hear..
Unless we get politicians who actually want to help the country rather than themselves then we have serious issues going forward.
I don’t know the current government has done a lot to help the country so far. Massively reduced NHS waiting times after dealing with the strikes, improved workers rights bill, major infustructure investments to name a few and only a year in power. They just are terrible at messaging.
Righttrash would ignore any positive “messaging” anyway, they’re incapable of logic (or compassion, or common sense)…
Never get that mentality. Polictics isn’t a cult, people should be able to look at the positives and negatives of parties in government and see how it balances for your view of the country. Blind believing one party is amazing and antirht is crap is nuts.
The problems with this programme have zero to do with the present government and everything to do with the last one. What the present government now do about it will be the test on if we blame them for anything… but we have to wait and see what they do.
Same with much of the mess of defence.
But they’re in the driving seat now, so inaction will only mean they get the blame, and rightly, if they can make a difference and won’t.
It certainly becomes impossible for any Govt in an environment where the public has become so short sighted and cynical about everything. One only has to look across the pond as to how manipulated we all are. As much as I hated Biden the stats show the Country was thriving best growth in years, employment massively up, only inflation was a bit higher than ideal but that as the World found was Covid related and mostly as a result of Trumps previous term and was u like now actually declining. Now it’s about to hit recession, inflation rising, jobs lost yet it’s all being presented as the opposite and nearly half the Country still buys into it. I fear rational thought or policies based on facts and evidence or perceived as such by the voter, in this new social media driven and manipulated World is going to be near impossible, especially in Countries like Britain where growth and cohesion are difficult to maintain even more so when MAGA are intent on exploiting everyone else using every tactic possible to feed their own oligarchs wealth and a little trickle down swamped by State sponsored propaganda to fool those below everything’s just great. It’s going to be almost impossible for any foreign Govt beyond China to weave a financially se rue route through this.
What is happening in the US is essentially a far right take over, with massive levels of far right terrorism..the problem is it’s a society that is so used to lethal gun violence that they don’t even see it. Just last month a guy gunned down 4 US politicians and it was hardly noticed.. so many people die or are injured to violence in the US that they cannot even see the problem.
One major risk not mentionned, is the lifetime upgrades. With the US seemingly out, who is going to bite the bullet and fund this? Going to be hard to get so many countries to agree on a roadmap and stick with it.
my 2 cents
The present 3 have managed so far. While Australia currently takes the lead (Australia paid for the development & has the biggest fleet), but all members of the E7 club have input (there is a formal arrangement). Development is ongoing. The UK planes are being built to the standard Australian planes are being upgraded to. Turkey & S. Korea will follow. One advantage at the moment is it is quite a small but knowledgeable club & everyone gets listened to.
Could an Airbus type be used to accommodate the radar sets?
If you wanted to spend many billions more, futher reinventing the wheel I suppose Mike..
Setting up a small bespoke operation to build 5 aircraft was always a bloody stupid idea, but the MOD just adore blowing money like it’s going out of fashion, they arn’t interested unless they can gold plated it…
I was thinking along the lines of aircraft for NATO and even export. Don’t we need to ween ourselves of reliance on US weaponry?
I suspect SAABs system probably offers 90% of the E7’s capability, it’s in service, derisked and has a wide user base to spread the costs of the inevitable counter obsolescence, 10 year updates.
Should the RAF have simply bought these off the shelf, yep, we could have had 5 in service years ago, at a fraction of the cost.
As we often say here, we have to gold plate everything, often with poorly thought out procurement that’s more to do with job creation, than procurement of the required kit, in a timely manner.
Your 90% figure is a bit high, more like 70 to 75%, if your talking about the primary radar’s performance, As the Globaleye uses the upgraded Erieye ER radar, which has a significant performance increase over the legacy Erieye radar. However, in this case size does matter. The Northrop Grumman made MESA radar operates in L-band (1 to 2GHz) compared to the S-band (2 to 4GHz) Erieye. This does mean the transmitter antenna part of the transmitter-receiver module (TRM) is bigger than the S-band ones. But it also means they are more power efficient, as the L-band is not as effected by atmospheric absorption as the higher frequency S-band. So for a similar amount of power, the L-band will transmit further. As primary radar is a two way journey, the reflected signal will also be less affected compared to a S-band. Which then also helps receiver sensitivity, so in essence the MESA radar will be able to detect targets further away than the Erieye.
The other advantage Wedgetail has is the use of a larger aircraft, in this case the Boeing B737. This means that the aircraft can hold more server racks for signal processing, but also has greater area for cooling, especially if the aircraft’s fuel tanks are used. But perhaps having a greater number of operators/fighter controllers is another immediate advantage.
One thing in the Globaleye’s favour is that it has an AESA Seaspray fitted under the fuselage, primarily for maritime surveillance. But it will also be very good for tracking cruise missiles and drones.
More double speak and no orders. Nothing changes.
How?
It’s not like they are brand new designs. How can MoD screw up simple projects time after time?
It’s a gift!
Nobody backbench MP makes unspecific claims about the programme and everybody turns into headless chickens 🤦🏻♂️
No we are reasonably discussing the implications of problems long standing, but that this incident presently highlights around this project. It hasn’t just parachuted unexpectedly out of the sky crashing through George’s roof, there has been concerns raised almost from the beginning of what was deemed a mature platform, we just don’t know the depth or breadth of them but questions are rightly asked and discussed, even if they prove unfounded. Surely it’s what a forum of this nature exists for.
No it’s speculation based on rumour.
The Wedgetail is not a “mature platform”. Since introduction in 2012 only 14 have been built, little better than 1 per year. Additionally there are significant differences in the versions operated by each country.
Given it’s a Boeing project, it’s bound to be late/ over-budget/ etc. You just have to look at the KC-135, VC-25B (Air Force One), Starliner, 737-Max, etc to see the company has fundamental issues with its culture which affects both design, certification, and manufacturing.
But knee-jerk reactions of dumping it and buying Saab or fitting the radar in an Airbus are ridiculous and completely out of proportion. But hysteria rather than informed reasonable debate is a popular reaction on this forum 🤷🏻♂️
Just to clarify- Are you saying you dont believe we should have chosen Boeing to deliver the platform in the first place?
No I’m not saying that at all, it was the best option technically, and arguably the only one.
But given Boeing’s performance of late I would have prioritised more than is usual the consequences of cost-overruns or late-delivery.
The Tory Minister who signed this off should he hauled in front of a public enquiry, interviewed under caution on misconduct in public office offences and made to face some consequences. No competition and cuts from 5 to 3.
Yes there would be lots of MOD , treasury and industry meddling but the buck has to stop somewhere.
This keeps happening.
🤦🏻♂️😂
Only Boeing can f**k up even existing programs like E7. I’m sure the MoD probably caused a few issues but there are half a dozen pretty straightforward Boeing air and space programs currently experiencing severe delays for no reason other that Boeing sacked all it’s engineers to jack up profits over the past ten years.
As the USAF is dropping its buy NATO will have to step up so I’m sure there is still plenty of financial interest for Boeing they are just incapable as a business to follow through.
It’s all bodes well for the F-47 Felon… 🫣
Another RAF screwup with type choice etc as the Gov is lead by those twits at the top of the RAF remember. Should have gone with the SAAB offer as has France and perhaps NATO will follow as its more organic to Europe. It delivers on so may counts and not subject to a few strange political fellows across the pond. The RAF has not got a great history of buying sophisticated types really with the Nimrod history of screw ups and waste being typical of it.
I would like to know how Australia managed it with Boeing from scratch. A comparison of their experience (indeed later buyers too) and ours would perhaps be enlightening, no such comparison has ever been published as far as I know.
Not really the Saab offer is a tactical AEW system with very limited range, endurance and radar cover compared to wedgetail.. in the end what screwed this programme was not the RAF looking for something they did not need, as the Uk as an island and the need to cover significant areas of ocean and needs a strategic AEW system. It was the very low numbers ordered, which is the issue.. Boeing has no interest in supporting a project for 3 aircraft.. if it was 7-9 there would have been a different level of engagement.
And let’s be very clear the primary threat to the UK is long range missile attack essentially its a cruise missile lead risk and for that you want strategic AEW aircraft.
How is it a screw up? Please elaborate as there are no facts available concerning the state of the project…
Its late, and the cost budgeted for as a fixed price contract with a sub contractor who had zero military experience thus delaying the project even more (we had to buy the 5 radars as there was not get out clause to reduce it and save money) now we have the 5 units of which only 3 are getting fitted providing an inadequent service at best. Anyone with an ounce of intelligence would know you dont scrape a capabiltity until the replacement is up and running, thanks goodness NATO has provided for the UK in the intrim. Project managment certainly lacking as usual with MOD/RAF projects. I consider that a real screwup. Poor leadership who need to grow some…………………..
So the MoD had the good sense to anticipate issues and to cap costs by ensuring it was fixed price. Sounds like they did their job well then.
As for the subcontractor choice, that’s surely the choice of the contractor.
The scrapping of the E-3 Sentry’s is not part of the Wedgetail project so you’re misdirecting their.
Yeah if you consider the price being paid to Boeing for 5 convereted aircraft and only getting 3 is a steal. Only saving was the relatively small amount to purchase the 2 other airframes which was the only saving as the MOD was going to purchase those as it did the other 3. So each conversion now costs more! Boeing had the conversion costs more than covered in the deal.
They were going to go with Marshalls, but they fell out and the conversion had to been done in the UK so there was little choice and it took the new inexperinenced contrator some time to get it’s team together to undertake the work so delaying it.
Do you give up your car or house before you have the new one? If so I’d simply say your a fool. Of course the scrapping of the E3’s is not part of the Wedgetail project as Wedgetail is about NEW KIT not the old, but you still dont give up something so important.
Many of the poor decisions made recently by the MOD has not only cost us in cash but in standing within NATO and around the World. There is no longer ‘Great’ in Britain.
I think it’s worth remembering that the original order was on the back of inventive financial planning, funding being found by scrapping the E3s early and not upgrading them. I understand that there was never provision in the defence plan for a E3 replacement. It is regularly reported that the full business case is yet to be approved by minister, so the real issue is how the contract with Boeing was ever placed.
The big problem is the cut from 5 to 3 made the programme essentially untenable.. even 5 was marginal.. in reality the UK needs 6 of these for home defence and 3 for expeditionary use.. in the end carrier strike is always best supported by strategic land based aircraft. So the order should have been 9.
In reality this was and is the closest to an off the shelf option for a strategic AEW platform.. remember all the other off the shelf options are essentially tactical AEW platforms with a limited range, endurance, and range of radar.. essentially the US is giving up on air breathing strategic AEW platforms and is dropping to a tactical platform with a gamble that it can get a space based option up and running.. its a very very big gamble because if it cannot get a space based system working its screwing itself hard in the pacific.
Then the question is why are the French buying them then to do such a role? The range has been more than doubled in the latest versions and now mounded on a jet it get high enough to see out too. So it not a simple tactical radar at all anymore and of course NATO countries will be operating the same kit too. We need numbers of a good working setup to make it worth while in the end, 3 was always a joke especially when you purchased the expensive part (the radar itself which will noe become spare parts and worthless in the end). Sad times really…………..
NATO is buying the E-7 Wedgetail to replace its E-3 Sentrys.
Its probably best to everything on standby until Hegseth has his head pushed down a toilet at the Pentagon by an irate General.
According to Aviation Week, Boeing E-7A Drops Out Of South Korean AEW Competition, unfortunately it’s behind a paywall.