Boeing is studying the possibility of upgrading US Air Force E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) and other military Boeing 707-based aircraft with the advanced flightdeck developed for the next-generation 737-700.
The option is one of 125 proposed upgrades of the E-3 being considered as part of the Extend Sentry update.
Jim Singer, AWACS US programmes manager, says that "-there is a lot of interest in that for all the 707 airframes, including the E-3, E-6 TACAMO and even [the E-8] JSTARS. We are certainly evaluating it, and there is an outstanding opportunity there."
Boeing is now on contract for 64 of the upgrade items which centre around an advanced "open-system" computer architecture which allows the use of new commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware and software.
"The USA is proceeding with replacing the CC-2E [Lockheed Martin central mission computer] partially with a COTS computer," says Singer. He describes the Extend Sentry update as "step one in the evolution towards an open architecture".
Other elements include off-board tracking computers and enhanced displays which will include raster-drawn maps, sun-shaded terrain (to identify radar masking) and geopolitical boundaries. Deliveries of an upgraded APX-103B identification friend or foe system in final production form have also just begun. This decreases excessive azimuth jitter of targets.
Further advances include the fielding of a multi-sensor integration system which merges data on a single target from all sensors into one computer track, and the development of a computer-based training package for AWACS crews based on the system devised for the Boeing 777.
The Extend Sentry is dovetailed with two other significant upgrades. The first of these is the ICON (integrated contract) programme which includes enhanced electronic-support measures (ESM), a mission computer memory upgrade, the Class 2H Joint Tactical Information Distribution System and global-positioning system.
Four of the USAF's 33-strong E-3 fleet have so far been updated under the ICON in the programme which is expected to last four years. Updated aircraft are recognisable because of the squared off, box-like tailcone which houses the new aft-facing ESM antenna.
The other continuing upgrade is the long-running Radar System Improvement Programme (RSIP). Dating from 1989, the RSIP involves Boeing with Northrop Grumman (previously Westinghouse) as the prime contractor working on a 16dB improvement of the APY-2 surveillance radar's ability to detect smaller, stealthy targets, as well as enhanced electronic countermeasures, upgrades to the consoles and computers and rewriting of the software in the Ada programming language.
NATO and UK AWACS fleets will receive the RSIP in early 1998, with four retrofit kits scheduled to be fitted to USAF aircraft in the fourth quarter of 1998.
- All four Boeing 767 AWACS aircraft for the Japan Air Self Defence Force will be converted and redelivered to Seattle from the Wichita conversion line in Kansas by the end of 1997, prompting Boeing to offer handover to Japan of the last two aircraft in 1998, rather than 1999, as now planned.
Source: Flight International
