Aircraft now virtually complete externally, with ground vibration trials scheduled to start later this month
Boeing is on track to begin flight tests of the first 737-based Wedgetail airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft for Australia in May, following the completion of ground vibration tests which will start later this month.
Australia's first aircraft will continue in flight test until December. "This phase will be aimed at airworthiness testing, so all external modifications need to be complete aerodynamically, and the major components have to be installed from the weight and balance point of view," says Wedgetail shipside support leader Walt Cannon.
Externally, the aircraft is now virtually complete, with the 2,950kg (6,500lb) Northrop Grumman Mesa active-array radar antenna, nose-wingtip-and tail-mounted countermeasure systems and other changes - including two large ventral stabilisation fins - installed. Internally, the bulk of the Mesa radar system processing and power equipment is fitted, along with cooling and associated system hardware.
Full mission hardware and operating software will not be installed until January 2006, with a second test effort to clear the mission systems between March and August 2006. Mission radar flight tests will, meanwhile, be conducted under a development, test and evaluation phase that will begin in late May 2005 using the second Wedgetail and run through to the end of June 2006.
The Royal Australian Air Force will take delivery of its first two aircraft in late November 2006, with a further two to follow in 2007.
The modifications to the baseline airframe, based on the hybrid 737-700 fuselage and -800 wing combination of the Boeing Business Jet, are being developed under a supplemental type certification (STC). "We will be applying to the FAA [US Federal Aviation Adminstration], and in the end it will be an STC installation," says Cannon.
Modifications to Turkey's first 737 AEW&C aircraft will begin in Seattle in early 2005, with delivery scheduled in 2007. Its remaining three aircraft will be modified in Turkey, with the second due for completion in late 2008. The design is also being offered to meet South Korea's AEW&C requirements, with Boeing having allocated an initial $2 million to the project.
GUY NORRIS / LOS ANGELES
Source: Flight International
