Locator: 48613MILITARY.
USAF cancels the E-7 Wedgetail, citing survivability and cost concerns. Link here. This a/c was built on the Boeing 737, also marketed as the Boeing 737 AEW&C. Link here.
Last year, the Air Force and Boeing inked a $2.6 billion deal for the first two Wedgetail prototypes, the first of which was set to be delivered in FY28. The service intended to buy a total of 26 Wedgetails to replace aging E-3 AWACS aircraft. The Air Force has not yet published detailed budget information, but supporting documents indicate a request of $200 million in research and development funding to close out the E-7 program.
From the first linked article:
The official added that the Wedgetail, while a “perfectly great” platform, doesn’t match with the department’s current ambitions to have a sensing solution that would cover the entire globe instead of a more limited theater.
“If we want to go there, we have to do a large investment in space-based sensing, which also supports Golden Dome. It covers homeland defense, It covers the Indo-Pacific, which is our priority theater, and also services the globe,” the official stated. “So that investment [in Wedgetail] was pushed that way [to space-based sensors].
We are bullish on space, and we think that’s a capability that can be achieved actually faster than the E-7 will deliver at this point.”
Was it easy to kill the E-7? First question to ask, where was the E-7 being built? From AI:
The Boeing E-7 Wedgetail is not being "built" in a single location. It is a modified Boeing 737-700 airframe that undergoes modification and integration of its mission systems.
And here it is:
The primary modification and integration work for the Royal Air Force's E-7 Wedgetail fleet is being done in the UK, specifically at facilities at RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland. While the core 737 airframe is built elsewhere, the "Wedgetail" configuration is completed in the UK.
I doubt the US Congress had any trouble killing this project.
Memo to self: stop by Barnes and Noble and buy some new aviation magazines. LOL.
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How Slow Was News Today?
National news, CBS Nightly News, tonight, Saturday night led off with a still photo of a tornado that caused no damage in Bismarck, ND. I kid you not; I can' make this stuff up.
