photo: Boeing Boeing delivered the penultimate and third Peace Eagle Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) aircraft to the Tur...
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| photo: Boeing |
Boeing delivered the penultimate and third Peace Eagle Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) aircraft to the Turkish Air Force, on Sept 4, at Konya Air Base, the fleet’s main operating base.
Based on the 737-700 commercial airliner airframe, the AEW&C provides advanced airborne surveilliance and battle management capabilities and can simultaneously track airborne and maritime targets.
Boeing is scheduled to deliver the fourth aircraft in 2015. In addition to aircraft, the Peace Eagle program includes ground support segments for mission crew training, mission support and system maintenance.
The 737 AEW&Cs can elevate its radar to 10 kilometres above the earth’s surface and the 10 advanced mission crew consoles can maintain surveillance over a surface area of 400,000 square kilometres at any given time.
It was designed for the Royal Australian Air Force under "Project Wedgetail" and is designated as E-7A Wedgetail in RAAF.
Unlike AWACS aircraft featuring rotodome, the 737 AEW&S has a fixed, Northrop Grumman Multi-role Electronically Scanned Array(MESA) radar located on the dorsal fin on top of the fuselage.The MESA radar provides air-to-air coverage, air-to-surface coverage, integrated identification friend or foe, special track beams and focused sector operation.
The Peace Eagle 1 was modified and tested by the Boeing Integrated Defense Systems in Seattle, Washington. Later Peace Eagle 2, 3 and 4 are modified and tested at the facilities of subcontractor Turkish Aerospace Ind (TAI) in Ankara, Turkey. The platform is also operated by Australia and South Korea.
