Boeing E-3D Sentry AEW.1 (AWACS) (RAF)

[dmereifield]

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.

FFS we're only getting 3?

[KiwiMuzz]

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.

FFS we're only getting 3?

Yup. This is how it works: you acquire seven E3-Ds, then starve them of maintenance funds so you wind up with only three operational, and when it is time to replace them, the ones who failed to provide maintenance funds can say "well, there's only three of them, so we only need three to replace them". Don't hold your breath waiting for an explanation as to where the requirement for seven airframes has gone.

[Scimitar54]

“Planning for Peace and Risking War”, The inverse of what Defence IS all about.

[SW1]

Yes just 3. What happens when the bestest deal every turns out to be someone didn’t add up there sums correctly… that and the need to gut the istar fleet to crew p8 they also couldn’t add up there sums on. Never mind crewing issues on reaper transition.

The expeditionary distractions of the past couple of decades they perhaps forgot why they bought e3 and indeed the majestic Shackleton before that, to provide radar cover over the North Sea and North Atlantic.

[Lord Jim]

One of the assumption was probably that our three E7s will be pooled with the NATO AWACS fleet covering the areas mentioned and so three will just about cut it. Of course that excludes national deployments out of area and so on.

[topman]

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.

FFS we're only getting 3?

Yup. This is how it works: you acquire seven E3-Ds, then starve them of maintenance funds so you wind up with only three operational, and when it is time to replace them, the ones who failed to provide maintenance funds can say "well, there's only three of them, so we only need three to replace them". Don't hold your breath waiting for an explanation as to where the requirement for seven airframes has gone.

The requirement got moved into the big pile of stuff marked, things we can no longer afford.

[Scimitar54]

You must have meant “No longer want to afford”!

[Lord Jim]

Well reading various sources in the public domain, and I hope I am not repeating something previously said, but the appears three of our E-3Ds ae now destined for Chile. Two will be kept operational and the third with be used for spares. They will replace Chile's existing single 707 Condor

In addition it also appears that our now retired Sentinel fleet is being purchased by the US Army. The platform basically does everything the US Army wants form an existing development programme though I believe that one was being based on a Gulfstream.

[Ianmb17]

Still training today thought we sold them

[Ianmb17]