UK Defence Forum

ArmChairCivvy wrote: there will be other allies on the scene, too

Indeed. And I bet those allies would appreciate it if you could tank their assets too. And gosh, think of the flexibility that would give operational planners...

Any news about possible Wedgetail purchase?

abc123 wrote:Any news about possible Wedgetail purchase?

I haven't heard anything of late, but I imagine government has priority elsewhere at the moment.

Other than RAF going thru the RAAF training for Wedgetail was the last I heard, which puts it within range being that Seedcorn place operators in the Poseidon train spectrum and that capability was taken up.

R686 wrote:Other than RAF going thru the RAAF training for Wedgetail was the last I heard

It remains unfunded, but the above would point to the Commands exercising their new powers to time prioritise between projects (which still will need to go thru the Maingate, which is not a "Command-level" decision).
- perhaps the RAF do not want to repeat with their AEW fleet the experience of the RN (= keeping T-23s going for longer than they should have... not VFM)

Some good news...

That's a nice sweetener, to deflect the criticism of single sourcing from abroad (read: the US)

Same PR fluff as before bugging up a non value added build to print.

Also the statement of using the same facility to meet any future sales is about as realistic as saying we’ll use Rosyth to build any future cvf sales.... it’s also guarantees the USAF won’t be buying.

SW1 wrote:a non value added build to print

A good point; land prgrms should also go thru that scrutiny (though just getting a repair facility in-country, on the deal, is some value added)

ArmChairCivvy wrote:That's a nice sweetener, to deflect the criticism of single sourcing from abroad (read: the US)

It's still buying an aircraft from America, and buying a radar from America, they're proposing to bolt the two together in the UK because the E7 is an out of production aircraft.

They were never really "in production" aircraft anyway. They were always a mod kit to 'green' aircraft. (Actually they were pretty much painted already, IIRC.) Only 2 of ours were done at the Boeing plant in the US – and not on a line there either. The rest were done here in Australia at the local Boeing hanger at RAAF Amberley – a depot repair shop (that used to be Air Force but was privatised/civilianized in the 90s). The 'green' airframes flew in under their own power. It's hard to call it a production line job if that's how they turn up, here or at the US plant.

Not sure of the Koreans or the Turks. But again, there was no line to start up to do the job. Someone just put together a mod kit and grabbed some green airframes.

Another Sentry down — one’s apparently being sold back to the US to be made into an E-6.

https://beta.sam.gov/opp/3c0c3bbbe05d4c ... ,15&page=2

The Armchair Soldier wrote: sold back to the US

and ours were in such bad shape, with no spares forthcoming that upgrading the kit on them would have been wasted money??
- compare with " have sufficient service life (hours and cycles) remaining in order to remain in service through 2038. The planned usage for the trainer aircraft is 600 hours and 2400 landing/cycles per year."

Maybe we could use the use the money raise to seed a programme for Boeing to install a AAR Probe on both our P-8s and planned E-7, similarly to what they did for the E-3D.

More on E-3 numbers reduction

https://questions-statements.parliament ... -10/128242

The Sentry has provided excellent service and intelligence capability to both NATO and the UK since its first operational mission in 1991. The drawdown of Sentry is ongoing. Since 2017 the fleet has reduced from six airframes to three. As is normal in fleet transition, the numbers of aircraft and crews needed to support frontline operations naturally reduce approaching the formal out of service date. It will continue to deliver this operational capability and the ability to undertake operational tasking all the way to its out of service date.

BlueD954 wrote:More on E-3 numbers reduction

https://questions-statements.parliament ... -10/128242

The Sentry has provided excellent service and intelligence capability to both NATO and the UK since its first operational mission in 1991. The drawdown of Sentry is ongoing. Since 2017 the fleet has reduced from six airframes to three. As is normal in fleet transition, the numbers of aircraft and crews needed to support frontline operations naturally reduce approaching the formal out of service date. It will continue to deliver this operational capability and the ability to undertake operational tasking all the way to its out of service date.

All sounds so inevitable, a gradual and graceful fading away to black.

So reduced availability followed by a capability gap due to piss poor planning.

https://www.janes.com/defence-news/news ... r-aircraft

Looks like one Sentry is being sold to the US Navy to provide flight training for E-6B crew without wearing out the operational fleet - one has apparently already made the trip to the US earlier in the year and it's suspected that's the one to go.

Long term the US want to replace the E-6B with a handful of C-130J-30 variants

Another home for the last time

The Sentry was officially retired on the 28th of September 2021.
https://www.janes.com/defence-news/news ... entry-aew1

It’s appears chile has bought our retired awacs fleet and with the US army looking to buy the sentinel fleet lucky we don’t them any more.



Bet multiple sentinel in particular would have been off Ukraine right now had it not been discarded

Arrived waddington 26/01/22 nice picture with sentry in background


https://fightercontrol.co.uk/forum/view ... ?p=1372308

Chilean Air Force crew's are at Waddington undergoing training i believe

Ianmb17 wrote: ↑04 Feb 2022, 07:32 Chilean Air Force crew's are at Waddington undergoing training i believe

Might explain the low pass over Nottingham yesterday

How much??????

50p and a packet of Smarties that were down the back of the sofa!

I read a report stating cancelling 2 wedge tails cost the mod £18m in fines to boeing. I assume that's the loss of discount through EOS that ordering all 5 would have brought, rather than plans incompetence if the individual price would have been the same if we ordered 3 in the first place with an option to order 2 more.