With pressure on the U.S. Air Force to field its upcoming fleet of E-7A battlefield management aircraft as quickly as possible, the service is leaning heavily on advance procurement.
The Air Force wants to have a fleet of up to 26 of the Boeing-made command-and-control aircraft by 2032 to replace the aging E-3 Sentry. The latter’s airborne warning and control capabilities are lagging, and the fleet is nearing the end of its life. The Air Force is now retiring half its fleet of 31, though some lawmakers last year expressed concern that could leave the service with a capability gap.
But the Air Force’s ambitions to swiftly replace the E-3 in time for a potential fight against China, perhaps later this decade, are running into the realities of production limitations.
In a discussion with reporters at the Air Force’s Life Cycle Industry Days event in Dayton, Ohio, the program executive officer for digital services, Steven Wert, outlined steps the Air Force is taking to accelerate advance production and delivery of crucial components for the E-7 in hopes of speeding up the timetable for completing the planes.
The Air Force is now focusing on how quickly it can build the first E-7, Wert said — but there are limitations. Boeing first has to build the airframe using a 737 tube manufactured by Spirit AeroSystems in Wichita, Kansas; beef up its structure to be able to support the massive multirole electronically scanned array, or MESA, radar; add its mission systems; and then test and certify its airworthiness.
Source : Defense News
