RAF chief says 737-based airborne early warning jet will soon enter UK service.
Boeing has rolled out the UK Royal Air Force’s second E-7A Wedgetail surveillance aircraft in its final paint scheme.
The 737-based airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) jet (registration WT002) has been undergoing conversion and testing at Birmingham with Boeing and UK contractor STS Aviation Services. The aircraft logged its first flight in July, its fuselage then unpainted.
On 26 August, Boeing shared a video of WT002 exiting the paint shop, clad in a full RAF livery.
The design appears identical to that of the RAF’s lead E-7, with a low-visibility grey-white fuselage, radome and control surfaces.
The NATO Airborne Early Warning & Control Force crest is displayed below the cockpit windscreen and the sheathed dagger insignia of the RAF’s 8 Squadron is on the tail. A low-visibility pink-and-blue fin flash used by RAF surveillance aircraft is also present, along with the subdued yellow-pink-and-blue variant of the RAF roundel.
WT002 has already completed its first fully painted flight, according to Boeing.
The lead RAF Wedgetail (WT001) is already with 8 Sqn at RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland for final testing and evaluation. Boeing and STS are working on the third and final aircraft, also at Birmingham.
It is not known when the RAF will declare delayed initial operational capability with its new AEW&C assets. That milestone had most recently been targeted for before year-end, having slipped from an early-2020s expectation at the time of the 2019 contract award.
The deal, at the time valued at almost £2 billion ($2.7 billion), originally covered five E-7As but was subsequently reduced to three.
Chief of the air staff Air Chief Marshal Harv Smyth on 27 August said the E-7A “looks set to enter service shortly” after a visit to Lossiemouth the day before.
Operational availability of the Wedgetail will close a UK capability gap for fixed-wing AEW&C which has existed since the last of the RAF’s 707-based E-3D Sentry platforms were retired in September 2021.
The post Boeing rolls out second RAF Wedgetail in full livery first appeared on FlightGlobal.
