UK RAF Wedgetail AEW&C completes first flight

Boeing has completed the first flight of a UK Royal Air Force (RAF) E-7 Wedgetail and conducted functional checks marking a significant milestone in the programme’s test and evaluation phase.

The aircraft is in service with Australia, South Korea and Turkey with two rapid prototype E-7 aircraft being built for the US Air Force. In 2023, NATO announced the selection of the E-7 for its Airborne Early Warning & Control (AEW&C) mission.

NATO gave approval to the purchase of six aircraft in November 2023 and the first aircraft has been planned to achieve operational capability in 2031 by which time the alliance’s E-3As will have been in service for more than four decades.

The deal was described by NATO as ‘one of NATO’s biggest-ever capability purchases’ and with Shephard Defence Insight estimating unit cost at US$392 million (based on the UK purchase), the order could be worth as much as $2.4 billion.

The E-7 detects and identifies adversarial targets at long range and tracks multiple airborne and maritime threats simultaneously with 360° coverage via the Multi-role Electronically Scanned Array (MESA) sensor. It provides the warfighter with multi-domain awareness and command-and-control decision advantage.

In the next few months, following a series of flight tests and further evaluation, the aircraft will receive its RAF livery.

Related Programmes in Defence Insight

E-7 Wedgetail (737) - UK

Related Equipment in Defence Insight

737 Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C)