The acronym AWACS, for Airborne Warning And Control Systemdesignates aircraft carrying a radar intended to see as far as possible and thus to ensure advanced control of an airspace. If several aircraft manufacturers have tried, sometimes successfully, at designing such aircraft, the undisputed specialist is Boeing. The American giant indeed laid the first foundations of its kind with its PB-1W derived from the B-17 Flying Fortress bomber then in the 1970s with its remarkable E-3 Sentry designed from the C- personnel transport plane. 137 Stratoliner. Anxious not to be overwhelmed by other manufacturers, Boeing has always been able to adapt to the demands of its customers until launching at the very end of the 20th century into the development of a new generation aircraft whose success has took a while to appear: theE-7 Wedgetail.
Once is not customary it is not theUS Air Force who is at the origin of this plane but the Royal Australian Air Force. At the end of 1997 Canberra informed Boeing that it was seeking to acquire a new type of AWACS, more modern than the E-3 Sentry then in stock in the United States, France, or the United Kingdom. -United. The decision-makers of the American aircraft manufacturer then proposed to the RAAF the E-767, the development of which had been launched some time previously at the request of Japan. Australia refused. In fact for a year before the official request the RAAF had a clear idea of what it wanted, it had published it in a white paper called Project Wedgetail. This was based around an aircraft much smaller than the Japanese Boeing 767. The Australians wanted the Boeing 737.
It should be noted that at first the idea of transforming a single-aisle twinjet into an AWACS seemed ridiculous at best to Boeing engineers. Yet they took up the challenge. The narrowness of the fuselage here prohibited the use of a circular rotodome radar as on the E-3 Sentry and E-767. Boeing retained the MESA active antenna radar developed by Northrop Grumman and operating in L band. Quite logically for the time, a 737 Next Generation was chosen as the working basis, in this case a 737-700. This had already, in the year 2000, been acquired for a military version derived by theUS Navy. It was the basis of the C-40 Clipper for logistical support. In addition to the MESA radar installed in its bathtub above the fuselage of the plane, it was equipped with high and very high frequency communications equipment including links 11 and 16.
In December 2000 the Royal Australian Air Force officially placed an order for four copies of the one which had just been officially designated Boeing 737 AEW&C. An option was placed for two additional copies. The first examples were delivered in November 2009 and the fifth and sixth, representing the firm transformation of the option, in June 2012. In November of the same year they were declared operational.
Barely had the ink been dry on the Australian contract when Boeing received another proposal for its 737AEW&C. Turkey, as part of its program Peace Eaglealso placed an order for four copies. There Turkish Air Force demanded, however, that the planes integrate local technologies as well as equipment of Israeli origin. In this Asian NATO member country the aircraft received the designationE-7T Peace Eagle. It was in December 2015 that the new Turkish AWACS were officially declared operational.
If with these two air forces the Boeing 737AEW&C never had to face the slightest competition it was different with the Republic Of Korea Air Force. For the first time this twinjet took part in a competition. He came face to face with the Gulfstream G550CAEW and its Israeli radar. And he won it in the summer of 2006, paving the way for the order of four examples which were delivered between 2011 and 2012 for entry into operational service at the same time as the Turkish planes. They are locally designated E-7K Peace Eye.
Understanding the strength that his 737AEW&C the aircraft manufacturer Boeing took it upon itself to name its plane E-7 Wedgetailthus mixing the Australian and Turkish designations. Now the 737-700ER replaced the original 737-700. A few months later in the fall of 2018 the Royal Air Force announced plans to order the aircraft as a natural successor to its now outdated Boeing E-3D Sentry. Several senior British officials made it known that the choice of this military derivative of the Boeing 737 was a second best, due to the absence of Airbus in this niche. The contract was signed in March 2019 and the first aircraft officially presented in October 2024. The RAF calls this aircraft Boeing Wedgetail AEW.1.
Aircraft adapted to the needs of the Atlantic Alliance countries Boeing E-7 Wedgetail was chosen in November 2023 to replace the oldest E-3A Sentry belonging to NATO. They will be delivered to it from 2031. However, the largest current contract concerns theUS Air Force which also chose this aircraft to replace its E-3 Sentry. The Pentagon’s plan calls for acquiring twenty-six E-7A Wedgetail to be delivered between 2030 and 2037.
At the end of 2024, Boeing’s order book for its E-7 Wedgetail was therefore well and truly stocked and the future of the plane guaranteed. However, a doubt remained: the cessation of production of the 737-700ER would force the adaptation of the aircraft to the 737 Max 7, an aircraft which had suffered the full brunt of one of the most resounding scandals in history. of aviation. Would potential customers accept it? And at that time they were called Royal Canadian Air Force, Brazilian Air Forceor even Royal Saudi Air Force.
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