Air Force Seeking ‘Emerging Technologies’ for E-7 Wedgetail—or Successors
April 16, 2025 | By John A. Tirpak
The Air Force is still a few years away from getting its hands on its first E-7 aircraft for airborne early warning and control, but the service is already seeking industry input on new systems to either enhance or replace the sensor capabilities of the Wedgetail—or possibly even acquire new capabilities for an entirely different targeting and battle management platform.
The plan is to start an engineering and manufacturing effort in fiscal 2027, around the same time as the first E-7 gets delivered.
In an April 15 solicitation, the Air Force explained that the first few E-7s are being acquired under a rapid prototyping program to cover “urgent capability gaps” caused by obsolescence and diminishing availability of the E-3 Sentry AWACS fleet. But in order to go fast, “the government intentionally did not include emerging new capabilities” in the program. Now it is interested “in identifying industry partners to provide cutting-edge capabilities and technologies.”
The Air Force’s Wedgetail Advanced Capabilities branch at Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass., issued the solicitation.
https://www.airandspaceforces.com/air-force-emerging-technologies-e-7-wedgetail-successors/
