Free Republic

Aseismic shift has occurred in the Trump administration’s new defense spending plan that is just emerging when it comes to the USAF’s airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) predicament. The service’s E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft are dwindling in number and rapidly aging into unsupportability. The proven and in-production E-7 Wedgetail, based on the Boeing 737 and serving with multiple allies, was supposed to bridge the gap between the E-3’s retirement and pushing the sending part of the mission to space-based distributed satellite constellations. You can read all about this here. Now, if the administration gets...

Possible Naval AEW&C Bird for China Here’s what might be further evidence of China’s quickly evolving efforts to field an aircraft carrier with a full on and modern air wing; grainy pictures of what’s possibly a Chinese E-2 Hawkeye style airborne early warning bird. Maybe they won’t be able to operate off China’s Shi Lang carrier, which uses a ski-ramp rather than catapults to launch jets but it could still support and protect the carrier and its battle group in the same way as the U.S. E-2s currently do. It’s one more sign that China is getting serious about fielding...

Indian Navy Mulls Northrop Advanced Hawkeye Sep 2, 2009 By Neelam Mathews NEW DELHI — Last month’s export authorization from the U.S. government now permits Northrop Grumman to have discussions with the Indian navy on the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye, a platform that provides a highly adaptive form of airborne early warning and control (AEW&C). A U.S Navy representative, E-2 New Business Manager John Beaulieu, last week made an eight-hour presentation to the Indian navy on the E-2D after a request for more technical clarifications following a request for information last year. “We’ve been building up to this ... The partnership...