Boeing 737 based (E-7) Wedgetail AEW&C of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) |
By: Valerie Insinna
ST. LOUIS — The Air Force hasn’t yet announced its modernization plans for a slew of aging commercial derivative aircraft, but Boeing plans to use its 737 airliner as the basis for replacements to the E-3 AWACS, EC-130H Compass Call and all variations of the RC-135, a company official said Monday.
The company is banking on a militarized version of the 737-700 to win the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System recapitalization program that will succeed the Air Force’s current ground surveillance aircraft. But Boeing also sees a bright future for the 737 in other upcoming competitions because of its sustainability, and its larger size lends itself well to future size, weight and power requirements, argued Fred Smith, its director of global sales and marketing for the defense sector’s commercial derivative airplanes, which also includes the KC-46 tanker and P-8 maritime aircraft.
"We have looked at every single one of these recaps and we firmly believe that the 737 is the right platform,” he said during a briefing at Boeing’s facilities in St. Louis. Defense News accepted travel and hotel accommodations from the company.
The Air Force is still in the process of deciding exactly how it will replace its current Airborne Warning and Control System, called AWACS, as well as the RC-135 family of systems, which includes the Rivet Joint aircraft that conducts signals intelligence. However, in its Air Superiority 2030 flight plan, the service stated that it may not necessarily move forward with a traditional aircraft competition for AWACS because of concerns that it may not be survivable enough to withstand operating in a denied environment.
“Maybe it's something that's more survivable that's an airborne platform that moves forward, or maybe there's not a platform anymore,” Brig. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, who led the Air Superiority 2030 effort, said in a recent interview with Defense News. “Maybe it's just data-linked back to some ground location, or maybe it's data-linked to something like an AWACs that's just further away, but the sensors wouldn't be on that. Then it would just kind of be a gateway or a comms node with your battle managers there, so your battle management function could really be done anywhere.”
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