Posted on 03/17/2015 6:37:32 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
New photos recently emerged of China’s KJ-500 airborne early-warning and control plane. It’s Beijing’s fifth unique fixed-wing AEW&C aircraft. Which is kind of a big deal.
While hardly glamorous, these all-seeing planes are incredibly important to any modern air force. They transmit instructions and data — such as the presence of enemy fighters — with their powerful radars and sensors. If an air-to-air battle was an office, AEW&C planes would be the managers.
An air force with one of these planes in the air can see far more — and at much longer ranges — than an enemy without one.
But by any measure, five different types of AEW&Cs is a lot.
The U.S. Air Force has a single aircraft of this type in service. Boeing’s E-3 Sentry has been operational since 1976, and remains the global standard for AEW&C planes. The U.S. Navy has the carrier-launched E-2 Hawkeye.
However, Beijing’s five different spies in the sky are not a symbol of one-upmanship. China may be increasing its year-by-year defense spending, but a bigger reason why it needs yet another AEW&C aircraft is because they’re really hard to build.
While military commanders and air power advocates often stress the vital importance of AEW&C to any modern-day air campaign, the process of refining the required hardware is beyond all but the most technologically advanced nations.
(Excerpt) Read more at medium.com ...
Different strokes for different folks.
To misquote Ernie Kovacs: Medium.com, rarely well done.
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