"E-7 Wedgetail in danger..." Topic

The Air Force's plan to buy 26 new E-7 Wedgetail radar planes is in jeopardy as the Pentagon shifts its focus to space-based surveillance, the defense secretary said Tuesday…

Defense One: link

Is that really because it is Australian? So just a pawn in the tariff wars….

I couldn't see where it said it was Australian? Boeing is purely an American company I thought. The picture is of an RAAF Wedgetail but we don't build them.

Our defence industry couldn't make a sword at the moment….

Boeing is purely an American company I thought.

The electronics suite and interfacing is largely Aussie, mate. Boeing supplied the airframe and helped make the search radar work as designed. There could be other things, but I wasn't involved in the project. It went over budget, but that's no surprise. However, if Boeing is charging the Aussie price (adjusted for inflation) and any royalties need to be paid by the US then it may be more than the USAF wants to spend. I think Wedgetail was the project where Boeing was taken to court and lost, too, which made a whole host of contractors sit up, gulp and start sweating.

ADM ( australiandefence.com.au ) back issues may have more info, but ADM is a gun-runners' trade mag.

That – it's the electronics that are really important, Boeing are used just to carry them around.

it's the electronics that are really important

The radar is US (Grumman?) but the interfacing, ECW and some other bits are Aussie, 20th. It's been sold to a few other countries (South Korea and the UK are two I know of), but I don't know what changes were made. BAE were one of the prime contractors in Wedgetail, so theirs are probably the same as the RAAF.

PS Thinking about it- I'd be very surprised if Boeing didn't have an "All US" suite they could plug in. I don't know what patent issues there may be, nor what patent agreements between Australia and the US may be in place.

@20th Maine – apologies mate, I didn't realise it had Australian e-components.
@ Dal – thanks for the clarification Dal, I didn't realise we had a nascent electronic defence industry.

It's not huge, mate, but we have a few, very good, companies. For obvious reasons some of them don't advertise what they do. CEA ( cea.com.au/what-we-do ) is probably the best known. The biggest problem, apart from industrial espionage (not just the PRC, our allies- supposed and real- also), is keeping foreign companies from making offers to buy them out. Our various flavours of government don't give a flock about that, nor R&D funding, so they often accept.

Wouldn't you?

UK is a bit the same on letting really innovative companies get bought, mostly by USA based.

I don't trust satellite only options. Having a mobile air option is a good and necessary back up. However, with the advent of 300 mile range air to air missiles designed specifically to take out less maneuverable targets (China and the US have fielded them, and Russia has had them for a while, or claims to) and the fact that the E-7 is a big, unstealthy radar target might be a factor.

Saw that in the congressional hearing yesterday … The last word on that has not been written … yet …

Space based tech and drones are still being developed, enhanced, etc. The Fat lady ani't sung yet … and won't for a very long time.

What I did notice at that hearing the one side of the aisle has no other way to express themselves without hatred, vitriol, derision, etc. None of them could polish the SecDef's boots … 'nuff said …

UK is a bit the same on letting really innovative companies get bought, mostly by USA based.

It's mainly the US companies here, too, though BAE Systems is strongly entrenched and Thales (French) have established a big presence, too. For large enough "considerations" I think our various flavours of government would privatise the ADF.

However, with the advent of 300 mile range air to air missiles designed specifically to take out less maneuverable targets

That's probably a major consideration that's influenced their thinking, Tgerritsen. As for satellite comms, while they are generally reliable comms trunks, the more data you want to send, the higher the freq's you need to use and more overhead you need for forward error checking. But the higher the freq', the more interference you get- from rain fade to solar activity. Then there's new multiplexing (to combine the channels) and modulation techniques, for the higher data throughput, to consider.

I saw the air force wants to buy the E-2D used by the US Navy instead. Wedgetail does some things better and has greater range but requires good airfields. The E2-D can operate in much more rugged and austere locations. That actually makes sense to me in terms of the Pacific. Seems less necessary for European deployments but the ability to disperse to many airfields of varying quality is useful.

smithco +1

I saw a that hearing in Congress mentioned something about IIRC the E-7 was made in his district … Hmmmm ?