This Is What USAF's Future E-7 Radar Jet Is Actually Capable Of
Story by Howard Altman • Yesterday 2:54 PM
In a demonstration trailer designed to approximate the interior of the E-7A Wedgetail airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft, Boeing officials offered The War Zone and a handful of other reporters fascinating details about the E-7’s unique capabilities and painted a picture of why Air Force commanders can’t wait to get their hands on this jet.
This Is What USAF's Future E-7 Radar Jet Is Actually Capable Of
But that’s a few years off. Earlier this month, the Air Force signed a contract valued up to $1.2 billion to begin procuring Wedgetails - first designed for the Australian Air Force - to begin replacing the rapidly aging fleet of E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning And Control System, or AWACS jets. The first model is not expected to be fielded until Fiscal Year 2027.
So in the interim, the U.S. Air Force is relying on the E-3 to provide that critical function of quarterbacking the air war.
But the E-3 “is almost 60 years old,” Boeing’s Rod Meranda, Senior Manager Business Development, Mobility, Surveillance and Bombers stated in the E-7 trailer during the recent Air and Space Forces Association Air Warfare Symposium outside of Denver. “It's not just the airplane…It’s old engines - TF33 engines that we don’t produce anymore. The 707 airframe supply chain, all of those parts and stuff like that. There's only the KC-135 [Stratotanker aerial refueling jets]. No commercial [airlines or] anybody's flying those airplanes. So that's the airframe from a capability perspective.
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