UK RAF Wedgetail AEW&C completes first flight
Boeing has completed the first flight of a UK Royal Air Force (RAF) E-7 Wedgetail and conducted functional checks marking a significant milestone in the programme’s test and evaluation phase.
The aircraft is in service with Australia, South Korea and Turkey with two rapid prototype E-7 aircraft being built for the US Air Force. In 2023, NATO announced the selection of the E-7 for its Airborne Early Warning & Control (AEW&C) mission.
NATO gave approval to the purchase of six aircraft in November 2023 and the first aircraft has been planned to achieve operational capability in 2031 by which time the alliance’s E-3As will have been in service for more than four decades.
The deal was described by NATO as ‘one of NATO’s biggest-ever capability purchases’ and with Shephard Defence Insight estimating unit cost at US$392 million (based on the UK purchase), the order could be worth as much as $2.4 billion.
The E-7 detects and identifies adversarial targets at long range and tracks multiple airborne and maritime threats simultaneously with 360° coverage via the Multi-role Electronically Scanned Array (MESA) sensor. It provides the warfighter with multi-domain awareness and command-and-control decision advantage.
In the next few months, following a series of flight tests and further evaluation, the aircraft will receive its RAF livery.
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