The Royal Air Force (RAF), Royal Australian Airforce (RAAF), and the United States Air Force (USAF) have come together at the Royal International Air Tattoo to sign a joint vision statement.

This agreement outlines a trilateral collaboration for developing the originally Australian-developed Wedgetail Airborne Early Warning and Control aircraft, held by each of their respective countries.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Rich Knighton of the RAF, General Charles Q. Brown Jr. of the USAF, and Air Marshal Robert Chipman of the RAAF participated in the signing ceremony at RAF Fairford in Gloucester.

This tri-nation commitment extends to various aspects of the Wedgetail aircraft, including “capability development, evaluation & testing, interoperability, sustainment, operations, training, and safety.”

On this occasion, Gen. Brown said, “The signing of this Joint Vision Statement by our three Air Forces is an exciting opportunity… Collaboration and interoperability are critical to our warfighting advantage, signing this joint vision statement represents another step in the long-term, enduring commitment we have to the future and to the security of our three countries.”

Echoing Gen. Brown’s sentiments, Air Chief Marshal Sir Rich Knighton added, “The relationship between the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States is more robust than ever, and we share a mutual understanding of the challenges we face in the air domain and the need to address them.”

Air Marshal Robert Chipman reiterated the importance of the joint vision statement, referring to it as “a testament to the close relationship shared historically by our three Air Forces.“

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
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22 COMMENTS

  1. Hopefully this might mean cheaper costs, British companies doing a share of the work and more aircraft dispersed across the globe and able to deter conflict.😀

    • Hopefully it means that the RAF will keep the Wedgetail’s capabilities current, unlike what happened with the E3s.

      • Hopefully it means if costs come down we might get 5 (not holding my breath) seeing how we bought 5 sets of radars.

      • Hmmm… intriguing. Believe this agreement heralds a process of ensuring Wedgetail remains viable for a generation, until unmanned alternative capability truly matures. RAF will probably ultimately procure at least five a/c, possibly more later. 🤔

        • To a significant extent OT, but really have to praise those Aussies! Read an account that stated they are seriously contemplating transferring up to 41 withdrawn F/A F-18s (14 currently operational) to UKR as soon as early 2024! NATO should probably consider incorporating the type in sim based training, at least. (Believe there is a potential business opportunity for a Western company to provide depot level maintenance inside UKR.) Time to throw some shrimp on the barbie and crack open a Foster’s?!?

      • Time will tell. When first purchased there was a similar expectation that the RAF would align its E3s with the latest developments in the US and NATO but after a few years the MOD decided they knew better and belived that competing support and upgrades would bring cheaper solutions. In the end they agreed a support contract which tied their hands in terms of flexibility and a planned major system upgrade was ditched because they allowed it to grow like topsy in scope making it unafffordable with little industry interest. They then turned back to Boeing but by then they had insufficient funding in their budget for the work which was pushed back year after year untill the airframe became unsupportable. The French, whose E3s came off the same production line as the UK E3s and were priced as a combined deal except for National changes took far more sensible decisions and their aircraft remain viable even today.

  3. Can’t believe we have 5 radars for 3 planes.

    We really need to sort this out, it should be top procurement issue to over come.

    • We bought 5 radars on the basis of having 5 planes, we just need to acquire two additional airframes now lol

      • If someone had thought ahead two or three years ago, when civil aviation was on its knees post pandemic, there would have been a good chance of picking up a couple of 737NG airframes, with low hours, for a reasonable price. Now the airlines are using everything they have as hard as possible the chances of that happening are slight to non existent.

          • Not sure you are right. The 737NG is the build standard before the MAX, and is still in production for the Poseidon and the future USAF wedgetail. At least they didn’t show the same propensity for falling out of the sky!

    • If all five radar systems have been built (which I doubt) we could sell 2 back to the USAF to help advance their pre production aircraft with a commitment from them to replace the two radars at a later date (if required).

      It will be interesting to see how successful the ongoing conversion of the 3 ordered E7s meet promised in service timescales given the nature of the conversion arrangements. Have we actually been given a promised in servcie date at full operational capability? It may be sensible for the UK to see out te current contract for 3 ac and then add to the UK fleet off the US production line which will have to ramp up consideraly to meet the full USAF requirement and almost certian NATO and later the French procurements. The P8 is a good example of how muiple countries can slot into a single production line. By all accounts the P8 deliveries have been on time and largely trouble free.

  5. Should have happened years ago, why the fuck have five eyes not come together as a federation or at least CANZUK+USA??

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