TYPE REPORT // 737 AEW&C
The Boeing 737 airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft represents an evolution over the E-3 Sentry, one of the most recognized symbols of this mission. Since 2014 it has been successfully employed by Australia on combat operations, and it also equips South Korea and Turkey.
THE BOEING 737 AEW&C platform has been in the headlines in Britain this year, primarily due to the fact that the UK Ministry of Defence declared that the type is its preferred, if not only, choice to replace the Royal Air Force’s weary fleet of E-3D Sentry AEW1 AWACS aircraft. This has brought a blizzard of comments about Boeing’s ‘AWACS-lite’ and its suitability for the UK. But what is the history of the program?
The prototype Boeing AEW&C (not yet called the E-7 or Wedgetail) took to the air for the first time on May 20, 2004, bearing the civil registration N378BC. However, the story had begun several years earlier, when the notion of an airborne early warning 737 was proposed by Boeing, Northrop Grumman’s electronic sensor systems division and BAE Systems Australia. This team selected the Boeing Business Jet (which combined a 737-700 fuselage with the strengthened wings and la…
