As the Senate Appropriations Committee’s defense panel prepares to mark up its version of the fiscal 2024 bill in the next two weeks, the U.S. Air Force is looking to get some help in accelerating the delivery of the Boeing [BA] E-7A Wedgetail, which is to replace at least 15 of the venerable E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) planes for airborne moving target indication.
The Air Force wants to retire 18 of its 31 AWACS in fiscal 2024 (Defense Daily, March 13).
House appropriators have already recommended adding $200 million of the $596 million for E-7A advance procurement that the Air Force has on its fiscal 2024 congressional wish list. The House Appropriations Committee approved its version of the fiscal 2024 defense bill last month.
While the Air Force has said that a $200 million congressional add last year for the Wedgetail will not accelerate first fielding of the aircraft, the service says that Congress could push up fielding of the E-7 from one in fiscal 2029 to two in fiscal 2028, if lawmakers fully fund the $596 million for Wedgetail on the service’s fiscal 2024 wish list (Defense Daily, May 8).
The Air Force has said that, if Congress were to provide the $596 million, long-lead items for the first two E-7As would begin production in fiscal 2024.
While the procurement section of the Air Force’s fiscal 2024 budget had no funding for the E-7A, the service did request $681 million in research and development for E-7A in fiscal 2024–an amount provided in the House Appropriations Committee’s fiscal 2024 defense bill.
The Air Force “largely held” its intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance “portfolio steady [in the fiscal 2024 request] with one notable exception, and that is we continue to increase the procurement of the E-7,” Air Force Lt. Gen. Richard Moore, the service’s deputy chief of staff for plans and programs, said on July 20 at a Hudson Institute forum on Air Force cyber and spectrum operations. “The E-3 AWACS–1980s era, completely analog aircraft, the mission computer inside weighs about 25,000 pounds–will transition to an all-digital E-7 [with] phased array radar, all digital processing, lots of connectivity, lots of communications.”
The Air Force has said that it wants the delivery of a prototype E-7A in fiscal 2027 and that it will make a production decision in fiscal 2025.
Designed for the Royal Australian Air Force, the Wedgetail has 10 mission crew consoles to track airborne and maritime targets simultaneously. Korea and Turkey also operate the plane, and the United Kingdom’s Royal Air Force (RAF) has had plans to field it this year at RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland.
Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown, who served as the Combined Forces Air Component Commander for Operation Inherent Resolve in 2015 and 2016, has said that Wedgetail supported operations in Iraq and Syria.
The service has said that the cost estimate for the Middle Tier Acquisition effort for the E-7A is $2.7 billion.
The Air Force said in February that it had awarded Boeing a $1.2 billion research and development contract to begin rapid prototyping of the first two E-7As (Defense Daily, Feb. 28).
Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has said that E-7A delivery to the Air Force requires two years to acquire the new production 737-700 aircraft and two more years to modify them with the radar and command and control systems for the airborne early warning command and control mission.
In March, Northrop Grumman [NOC] said that it would begin producing the company’s Multi-role Electronically Scanned Array (MESA) radar for the E-7A (Defense Daily, March 20).
During the July 20 Hudson Institute forum, Moore also mentioned Air Force development of the Northrop Grumman AN/APG-85 radar, which is to replace the company’s AN/APG-81 radar for the Lockheed Martin [LMT] F-35 fighter.
“We are getting very close to the new radar on the F-35,” he said. “That [radar] will be a dramatic increase in our ability to operate with electronic warfare and electromagnetic spectrum operations kinds of things.”
A Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies’ report last month said that the APG-85, which is to field in F-35 Lot 17 under the Block 4 upgrade, will have twice the capability of the APG-81 and “is a powerful cornerstone of the F-35’s sensor suite.”
“The difference from an operational perspective is comparable to switching from 1990s-era dial-up to 5G internet,” the report said.
The APG-85 “can suppress, defeat, and deny the enemy’s use of the broad electromagnetic spectrum,” the study said. “This also enables better targeting of surface or airborne radars at further ranges. Additionally, standoff threat suppression operations will be significantly more effective in the support of a strike package and improve the survivability of terminally guided weapons being employed against high-value surface-to-air missile sites.”
In addition, “with fidelity improvements realized from the AN/APG-85 in reducing target location errors, and a significant [sic] increased jamming capability against targeted threat radars, the aircraft will gain improved weapon delivery accuracy and can attain an increased probability of kill,” Mitchell said. “That means a more efficient use of weapons per aircraft and the ability to service more single weapon targets per sortie. This is a big deal when commanders will need to expand the number of aim points that can be hit in a concentrated period of time.”