Royal Air Force personnel have joined representatives from Australia and the U.S. at RAAF Williamtown for the latest E-7 Wedgetail Trilateral Working Group meeting (with Canadian Air Force personnel observing).
It was the first time air force experts have gathered in Australia to share best practice and develop solutions on Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) of the skies.
Established in 2022, the Wedgetail Trilateral Agreement is a commitment of the RAF, RAAF, and USAF to work together under an E-7 Joint Vision Statement towards collaboration and interoperability.
During the event, partners had the opportunity to tour RAAF Williamtown E-7A Wedgetail operations, maintenance, and support facilities, and to conduct familiarisation with the aircraft.
The E-7 Wedgetail is currently in operation with the Royal Australian Air Force, Turkish Air Force and Republic of Korea Air Force. The United States Air Force and NATO have recently chosen Wedgetail as their E-3 Sentry replacement.
We need to get our 3 aircraft operational ASAP. I have no doubt that the RAF is trying its best but we really need to properly fund our armed forces. With that in mind can we please, pretty please put the extra 2 radars we have paid for onto aircraft…
This project sums up the stupidity of this government (and politicians in general to be honest).
Cheers CR
They still seem to be stuck in the increasingly fragile and dangerous concept that the US will automatically come to our aid, based perhaps on the notion that Trump will be committed to defending his golf courses. Of course the last time ‘America was Great’ was the result of an existential conflict in Europe which I fear in his most delusional moments might actually appeal to a ‘businessman’ making ever over stretching promises to his devoted followers. Musk is already showing the way by allowing Starlink terminals to be operated by both sides for Space X’s personal gain, so hey… Read more »
I can’t see the UK needing the US to come to our aid? Who would they be aiding us from?
We both need to work together as part of the western international rules based system which we both developed over more than 100 years and where the US is by far the biggest guarantor in the modern age.
Precisely so. Russia, Iran and China are but a nuisance. All are facing internal issues shared by many other countries but do not possess the flexibility to resolve.They could only dream of making the impressive international alliances the west can and have.
The decision to operate 3 instead of 5 was mind boggling. 5 is not nearly enough to undertake what the UK actually needs. Take into account maintenance, spares, servicing periods and deployments, then you are really looking at a lot more than 5 depending on what you are trying to achieve. Additionally you will have to have crews to fly along with engineers and then the logistics to provide all that ground support. Maybe we should have been better off spending the money on more within that platform i.e P8/F35.
I
Can’t imagine being RAF aircrew at these events and having to defend the lunacy of 3 aircraft yes 3 no really we have … 3 … yes I am familiar with the amount of airspace the UK is responsible for … yes I know the Atlantic and the Arctic Sea and the North Sea never mind commitments elsewhere …. But hey… makes you proud doesn’t it…
Spot on mate 🍺
100% agree with your the aircraft is nothing in the cost of this capability. So many others around the World are showing the UK MOD up.
CR , as I have stated on this site before, 3 platforms are insufficient. My opinion is based on my 3 years of experience as an Air Force ops officer. 5 is the number
Why in what theatre do we currently need a E7, USAF are currently not deploying any E3s to active theatres. They no longer seem to be Kings of the airspace, Rivert Joint seem to have replaced them. USA is using P8s due to there pure endurance in the Red Sea, all seems very weird and with Russia losing 2 AEW aircraft have they had there day ????
Interesting latest comments on the delay the USAF is having with E7 is that they took the RAF spec but then realised that we had not f**ked around with it as much as they thought so now they are f**king around with it and it’s costing billions more.
Maybe MOD procurement is listening, stop messing around with OTS solutions and just buy stuff
LOL
👍
Should have just used RAAF specs, switched out the radios. All else should be the same for the first tranche of aircraft. Could have made changes afterwards.
RAAF is a 2006 spec, try getting parts for those computers now. LOL
Good point. But upgrading the systems shouldn’t have been that difficult. But leave it to the USAF to want to reinvent the wheel each time.
USAF gave Boeing that big fat development package, have to look like they are improving it for the money
Canada won’t be getting any Wedgetails because they cost money….
You just bought a massive amount of P8 though. NATO will probably have plenty of E7 anyway, normally only need one or two in the air. Can never have enough MPA if there is a submarine threat.
Canada is mentioned in the article as observers…..
Think that was the question USAF only to replace E3s with E7s on a 3 to 1 ratio.
No doubt a common platform will drive for interoperability much as happened with the E3. Training courses and maintenance regimes could be standardised and system optimisation techniques shared. Also, there must be scope for the establishment of a common spares pool for those items which fail occasionally but are very expensive when they need to replace this could include engines where one held in Europe could be used by the RAF and NATO and similarly when operating in the US or Australia. This would relive each nation for holding their own spare of these high-cost items which spend most of… Read more »
There’s an interesting YouTube video of the wedgetail the plane not Australia’s largest bird of Prey very interesting
The Ukrainian s have now shot down two of the Russian A-50 AEW&C , the last one 160 miles behind the front lines, so what do you rate the survivability of the Wedgetail?
Much better than the Russian equivalent as it uses a far superior radar so won’t need to be as close, it has a lower radar cross section than the A-50 plus uses much better self defense systems
It’s a failure of Russian planning, more than the defectiveness of the aircraft. Russia still has not conducted a campaign to destroy or suppress Ukraine’s air defences. Russia basically do not have a modern equivalent of the HARM. They have the Kh-31P and the newer Kh-31PM. Neither of which use GPS, so when the target radar goes in to standby, the Kh-31 looses lock and aims for where it “thinks” the radar was, based on recorded signal strength. The PM is supposed to have a better wideband receiver, but has been found to pretty rubbish. When Ukraine found a nearly… Read more »
Russians not totally ineffective, Russia did damage one of the two Ukranian Patriot batteries, no details were released, except US said repairable, Russia has also claimed they destroyed a SAMP/T (Aster) battery which might be true as have seen no French PR on how great is the SAMP/ T which would have expected and Russia also said to have destroyed IRIS-T and NASAMS batteries. Re Wedgetail understood diffraction is a fundamental law of physics and assumed due the diffraction-limited beamwidth of the MESA L-band antenna performance will drop off at longer ranges, MESA claim of 370 km max range, and as the SAMs will be able… Read more »
There was an feature in air force monthly magazine just as the conflict was in the first stage that covered air defence suppression and it pointed out that,Russia air to surface anti radar missile were 30 years out of date.
Three aircraft for the RAF is a concept demonstration, not a capability.
It seems that this long term process of dealing with less and less platforms has to stop at some point, the sooner the better. War is coming into Europe. To begin with, platforms and systems of national defence connotation should be funded centrally with a separate budget. The SSBN and AEW&C fleets should be funded centrally with a new fresh budget. The P-8A Poseidon mission should go to the RN and then the RAF could enlarge and sustain in good footing its central roles. This is just an opinion coming from a far away country.
Everyone is busy saying that Russia is suffering in the Ukraine through losing 3 of their 12 AWACS and yet we are only buying 3 so realistically will only ever have one in the air at at anytime….. Top it off with the story of the EU banning the exports of weapons technology to the UK if a war breaks out in Europe and the situation is a complete and utter joke …. We are either committed to the defence of the UK or we through in the towel and surrender now
EU Banning what exactly, would this be the same EU that is still buying its oil from Russia.
There was that white paper report concerning the 5 RAF Airframes and the fact with the pandemic and Boeing shutting down the production. With the USAF looking to replace there own E3s and then funded the E7 development package. RAF 5 E7s would be out of date at delivery, and the USAF quoted as replacing there own E3s at a 3 to 1 rate due to the capabilities increase of the current E7s. so 3 airframes gives the RAF 2 airframes on line 24/7 for 5 years before the airframes would need deep maintenance. with the Landbase Radars and the… Read more »