British RAF E-3D Sentry NATO has awarded Boeing a contract to upgrade 13 of it’s E-3A Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircr...
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| British RAF E-3D Sentry |
NATO has awarded Boeing a contract to upgrade 13 of it’s E-3A Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft.
The $250 million deal will install digital flight decks and avionics, ensuring compliance with current, future air traffic control and navigation requirements, improving mission efficiency by saving time and fuel.
The upgrade will utilize readily available commercial-off-the-shelf digital avionics, solving the challenge of finding out-of-production avionics. Moreover the flight deck crew will be reduced from four to three.
The upgrade will begin in 2016 and will be completed by 2018.
Under an Engineering Manufacturing and Development (EMD) contract awarded earlier, Boeing has upgraded one NATO AWACS which will begin flight testing begins in the fourth quarter of this year with delivery scheduled for December 2015. As part of the EMD contract, Boeing also will upgrade the flight deck and avionics of a U.S. AWACS aircraft beginning this November.
The Boeing E-3A AWACS based on the commercial Boeing 707 airliner, is capable of detecting low flying targets within 400 km or 215 nautical miles; and at medium altitude targets within 520 km or 280 nautical miles.
One E-3A flying at 30,000 ft/9,150 m has over 312,000 km² in its field of view.
Three E-3As in overlapping orbits can provide complete coverage of Central Europe.
