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By Nigel Pittaway
VICTORIA, Australia — A senior Royal Australian Air Force commander has provided details of an interim upgrade carried out on the RAAF's Boeing E-7A Wedgetail airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft before their deployment to the Middle East last September.
Australia still has a Wedgetail operating from the United Arab Emirates under Operation Okra as part of an Australian Air Task Group (ATG) that also includes a single Airbus KC-30A multirole tanker transport and six Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornets. Prior to the initial deployment the E-7A was fitted with an IP chat capability, providing text rather than voice connectivity with the Combined Air Operations Centre in theater, Wing Commander Paul Carpenter said at the 2015 Australian International Air Show at the Avalon Airport here.
"The introduction of the IP chat capability into the aircraft was a real success story for us," said Carpenter, who was the commanding officer of the Wedgetail squadron and the detachment commander of the first rotation of Wedgetail personnel who returned to Australia in January. "That project looked like being many years in the future, but when we got notice of our Operation Okra deployment, our engineering department team got together with the wing, AEW&C System Project Office and Boeing Defence Australia and came up with a solution in a matter of weeks."
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