Friday, April 19, 2024
Friday, April 19, 2024
Air Force officials are looking to make a contract award to replace the aging E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft in fiscal year 2023, a sources-sought notice published today shows.
The listing also seeks the delivery of at least two manned, production-representative prototype aircraft within five years of that award, a provision the notice stipulates would include ground support and training systems.
The U.S. E-3 Sentry fleet, derived from Boeing’s 707 and dating back to the 1970s and ‘80s, consists of 31 aircraft that perform airborne moving target indicator missions. The Air Force hopes to eventually perform AMTI from space, service officials previously indicated, though the military is in need of a placeholder until that next domain is reached.
The new solicitation asks respondents to share details about the capabilities their platforms would bring to areas including advanced AMTI radar, electronic support measures, M-Code GPS used by the Defense Department, battle management command and control and more.
The notice further calls on industry to provide the classified or unclassified frequency ranges in which the radar operates, as well as “limitations on operating your radar solution both in the United States and globally based on existing or planned interference sources, including but not limited to cellular communications technology and other radar systems operating in the same spectrum band.”
Military leaders have previously noted access to the mid-band spectrum is especially critical for AWACS. In that vein, the E-3 Sentry is expected to participate in the Pentagon’s ongoing dynamic spectrum sharing experimentation work.
Today’s request for information comes after the service in the fall indicated its intent to award a sole-source time and materials contract to Boeing to study and analyze its E-7A Wedgetail configuration -- a top contender to serve as the follow-on to the Air Force’s AWACS fleet.
Mike Manazir, Boeing’s vice president for defense business development, has expressed confidence the Wedgetail, based on Boeing’s 737 and purchased by Australia and the United Kingdom, will be the Air Force’s choice, telling reporters ahead of last November's Dubai Airshow that the company expects the military will announce “sometime in 2022 that they’re going to move forward on the E-7,” according to media reports at the time.
The E-7 participated in the latest Red Flag exercise this winter. Takeaways from the platform’s performance in that exercise, Maj. Gen. Case Cunningham, the head of the Air Force's Warfare Center said in late January, “will feed into the lessons as we potentially look at bringing the E-7 capability to our own Air Force.”
Responses to the RFI are due March 10, the notice states.