The Air Force is still a few years old to get their hands on its first E-7 plane for airborne alert and control, but the service is already looking for the contribution of the industry to new systems to improve or replace the capacities of the Wedgetail sensors, or even even acquire new capacities for an entirely different targeting and combat management platform.
The plan is to start an engineering and manufacturing effort during the 2027 fiscal year, almost at the same time as the first E-7 was delivered.
In a solicitation of April 15, the Air Force explained that the first E-7s are acquired in a rapid prototyping program to cover the “gaps in urgent capacities” caused by obsolescence and the decrease in the availability of the AWACS E-3 Sentry fleet. But to go fast, “the government has not included new emerging abilities” in the program. Now it is interested in “identifying industry partners to provide cutting -edge capacities and technologies”.
The Air Force Wedgetatine Advanced Branch of Wedgetail for Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass., Emitted the solicitation.
“Following the EMD phase, the government plans to modernize USAF E-7A planes with EMD changes, produce new E-7 planes, or a combination of modernization and new planes,” said Air Force.
Among the E-7 capacities, the Air Force seeks to improve or replace is:
- The scanning radar with distinctive electronic route of the E-7
- Advanced infrared sensors
- Replacement of electronic support measurements (ESM)
- Replacement of electronic war self-protection (EWSP)
- Tactical Targeting Network Technology (TTNT)
- Link 16 High power amplifier (HPA)
- Joint connectivity of the global intelligence system (JWICS)
- Identification of the fight (CID)
- New generation tactical data link (TDL)
- Advanced missile data liaison capacities
- Another new generation technology for battle management, control and control, targeting, communications or position, navigation and timing.
In particular, the Air Force solicitation indicates that it wants technology to 2027 to begin to integrate into “the basic E-7 platform, or an equivalent AMTI / BMC2 platform”.
The Air Force plans to acquire 26 E-7 of Boeing by 2032, less than the 34 E-3 that the service bought in the 1970s and 80s. The managers said that they considered that Wedgetail is a stopgap solution for the mission of indication of target in motion, with plans to migrate the mission to space platforms in the 2030s. airborne is not yet clear.
The E-7 is hosted in cell 737-700, and Boeing will integrate the sensor management systems and the battle that the aircraft will carry. Northrop Grumman is the entrepreneur of the Grand Radar Mesa at the top of the cell, which considerably improves the capacities of the Rotodome radar on the E-3.
Last August, the Air Force ordered the first two E-7s “operational representatives” under a contract worth 2.56 billion dollars. These planes must be delivered during the year 2028.
There seems to be a certain emergency in the new request, while the Air Force increased the date of response from May 7 to April 22 only a week after the issue of the solicitation. This suggests that potential providers are already well aware of the requirements of the Air Force and are ready to meet.
The Air Force will require “the delivery of at least two (2) integrated weapons systems (advanced E-7 weapons system and associated soil equipment) within 7 years”, potentially from 2027, he said in the RFI. But he also noted that “the basic documentation for the E-7 will only be available (in the third quarter of the 2028 fiscal year), or potentially later. This documentation will not include detailed drawings or analyzes from any commercial part. ”
Northrop Grumman is indeed testing its integrated sensor reconfigurable multifunction with electronic scan (EMRIS), on which he finished his first “campaign” of test flights last year. The sensor, which can combine radar detection functions with communications and electronic war, is intended to equip much smaller platforms than E-7; Northrop has dimensioned for use on autonomous collaborative combat aircraft and combatants. This may explain the Air Force reference in the new solicitation to the “other planes” which could fulfill the AMTI / BMC2 role.
