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UK purchases five Boeing E-7 early warning aircraft


Julien

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6 minutes ago, Stealthman said:

We have seven E3's, one was sidelined very quickly, followed by two others leaving only four operational.

I know shipmate ...I was joking ....I don't know but I think lack of investment over time was probably to blame on the whole

Edited by junglierating
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We were originally going to get 8, but only 7 delivered. As someone pointed out earlier, 6 ordered with options on 2 of which only 1 taken up. 

Availability is always an issue, hence the need for a decent number of airframes.  The E7 is a good buy, along with P8, but truth is we do need more of them.

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On 3/23/2019 at 4:42 AM, Stealthman said:

We did buy seven although initial number was 8.....presumably one was axed. The fact that we need to replace the E3D is bad enough. A complete lack of investment in the fleet now leads to a bill for an inadequate number of replacements - out of five we'll be lucky to have two operational at any one time - appalling!!

I think you'll find better availability than that

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On ‎3‎/‎22‎/‎2019 at 5:42 PM, Stealthman said:

We did buy seven although initial number was 8.....presumably one was axed. The fact that we need to replace the E3D is bad enough. A complete lack of investment in the fleet now leads to a bill for an inadequate number of replacements - out of five we'll be lucky to have two operational at any one time - appalling!!

I'd suggest you stay away from aircraft fleet management if that's the maximum availability you can achieve or plan for. If I ran my airline fleets to that availability we'd soon go out of business. I'd expect the maintenance programme to account for 1 down in servicing, leaving 4 available.

 

Whilst, as with anything military aviation wise, of course, more is always better, the number required will have been considerd by strategists to meet the demand, whilst factoring in downtime.

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2 hours ago, Agent K said:

 

Whilst, as with anything military aviation wise, of course, more is always better, the number required will have been considerd by strategists to meet the demand, whilst factoring in downtime.

I think in this case the numbers may have been tailored to meet the size of the available cheque from the Treasury.

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37 minutes ago, mackem01 said:

Makes me wonder what's going on behind the scenes. They've probably run the E3's into the ground as this seems to have happened with a haste not

associated with the MOD.

Hardly! it's been a project and RFI/RFP for a sensible period now, and I'm not sure of the IOC, but this project will of course have long lead time items, so we're still a good couple of years away. I don't see that as hasty.

 

However, I do concur in that, for once, a requirement and procurement process has taken a sensible amount of time and hasn't been managed to death at great expense.

Edited by Agent K
typo
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On 3/24/2019 at 1:31 PM, Truro Model Builder said:

. Now keep it updated and relevant.

 

Sadly, the recent past record of the MoD and the RAF between them suggest that neither of those two things will happen.

It seems we no longer have people within the system who properly understand the demands of continuing airworthiness and long term capability provision. It seems we are forced to operate on a short term thinking basis almost entirely. However that is due to political 'thinking', if that isn't an oxymoron, and is strictly outwith this forum's remit!

 

The good news is that we modellers get some different airframes to model and some dismantling or scrapping scenes to add variety...

Rats, I haven't even BUILT my E-3D yet. Possibly my build rate needs attention.

 

'Agent K' - I'd like to hope that more sensible project definition approach implies a bit more long term thinking is involved, for once ! Fingers crossed.

Edited by John B (Sc)
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I'd hope so John B (Sc) this is (as all should be these days) more than just an aircraft, it's a complete package and should be defined in terms of total lifecycle (by which I mean contruction, delivery, operate and associated training, support, logistics etc.) and planned/implemented accordingly.

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Agent K ,think you have been a bit mean to stealthman.Although he is being a bit glass half empty...what he says has a modicum of truth.

I don't know what your

military fleet management experience is but it does not rely purely on engine and airframe numbers. clearly there is the mission system which is key in this case and that depends on the maturity of the system complete with any in country mods that it may require. Couple this with scheduled maintenance,mods packages,trials and other demands then getting two or three from only five airframe is about right if you are lucky.

As a mature airframe 737 (most numerous) simply flying yes.but depth events ,scheduled and unscheduled maintance with so few lumps will reduce what you may want and to be fair maybe the air force flying require ment is two or three from five sounds about right.I see this daily with 16 active fleet airframes and depending on your spares and support package  "things is difficult".

36 million of spares required and here's 18million work with that...it's challenging.

 

Edited by junglierating
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The glass is half full! The AESA system on the E7 is definitely a huge improvement on the mechanically scanned system on the E3, and indeed at somepoint the USA and Nato will be looking to replace their E3 fleets with new aircraft with AESA - possibly the E7? The failure to maintain the E3D's has to some extent done the RAF a favour! We're taking a big step forward in capability, and time will tell if we can meet all our operational requirements with just 5 airframes......

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As junglierating alludes to, not knowing the various contracts involved, I would punt at one in a major servicing and one in a minor, probably three serv at any one time.

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2 hours ago, Stealthman said:

The glass is half full! The AESA system on the E7 is definitely a huge improvement on the mechanically scanned system on the E3, and indeed at somepoint the USA and Nato will be looking to replace their E3 fleets with new aircraft with AESA - possibly the E7? The failure to maintain the E3D's has to some extent done the RAF a favour! We're taking a big step forward in capability, and time will tell if we can meet all our operational requirements with just 5 airframes......

What fascinated me about the E3-D is that very mechanical scanning system.  IIRC, the radar aerial is on one half of the rotodome, and the IFF on the other. At 6 revs/minute that's perhaps 10 seconds between seeing a blip and finding out what it is. At 1200mph thats over 3 miles? You could be in missile range by then!

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14 hours ago, junglierating said:

Agent K ,think you have been a bit mean to stealthman.Although he is being a bit glass half empty...what he says has a modicum of truth.

I don't know what your

military fleet management experience is but it does not rely purely on engine and airframe numbers. clearly there is the mission system which is key in this case and that depends on the maturity of the system complete with any in country mods that it may require. Couple this with scheduled maintenance,mods packages,trials and other demands then getting two or three from only five airframe is about right if you are lucky.

As a mature airframe 737 (most numerous) simply flying yes.but depth events ,scheduled and unscheduled maintance with so few lumps will reduce what you may want and to be fair maybe the air force flying require ment is two or three from five sounds about right.I see this daily with 16 active fleet airframes and depending on your spares and support package  "things is difficult".

36 million of spares required and here's 18million work with that...it's challenging.

 

Fair point and an informed observation. My fleet planning experience is civil (airlines) and I went to the other end of the spectrum (full glass!) and I think we'd probably agree that reality lies somewhere between the two.

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11 hours ago, Jo NZ said:

What fascinated me about the E3-D is that very mechanical scanning system.  IIRC, the radar aerial is on one half of the rotodome, and the IFF on the other. At 6 revs/minute that's perhaps 10 seconds between seeing a blip and finding out what it is. At 1200mph thats over 3 miles? You could be in missile range by then!

The E3's capabilities are limited in certain areas, and AESA is without doubt the way forward. The US and NATO will have to actively look at that in the near future and it's going to be an expensive scenario for both.

Bearing in mind the sheer cost of development I would say the E7 has a head start in that area. 

Meantime I can see our E7s being in great demand, although I don't believe we actually have any delivery dates yet.......

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Numbers also depends on what you want to use it for - less likely to be used as an airborne radar over the North Sea than as an expeditionary asset controlling the aerospace over hostile territory and managing the various packages. So we might need two on operations (or one in coaltion), one on training and one for 'standby' UK taskings, plus one in maintenance. A lean system perhaps, but you take what you can!

Edited by Dave Fleming
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1 hour ago, Dave Fleming said:

Numbers also depends on what you want to use it for - less likely to be used as an airborne radar over the North Sea than as an expeditionary asset controlling the aerospace over hostile territory and managing the various packages. So we might need two on operations (or one in coaltion), one on training and one for 'standby' UK taskings, plus one in maintenance. A lean system perhaps, but you take what you can!

Agree

 

Still when all else fails we can rely on crowsnest 😂😂😂when it eventually turns up....and that is a snakes wedding from what I have gleaned

 

Edited by junglierating
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5 hours ago, junglierating said:

Agree

 

Still when all else fails we can rely on crowsnest 😂😂😂when it eventually turns up....and that is a snakes wedding from what I have gleaned

 

Sadly as always we opted for the cheapest option with Crowsnest.......

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2 hours ago, Stealthman said:

Lockheed Martin had proposed a podded AESA radar for Crowsnest, the best possible option, but that would have been more expensive and so we opted to make use of existing kit.....

Yes but that existing kit is fantastic still period!!

The LM kit was immature and anyway LM will probably end up running the show for the DO so they are in a win win situation 😠

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