The UK’s new Labour government that came to power in July 2024 in a dramatic election win, has said that it has no plans to increase the number of vital E-7 Wedgetail Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) aircraft currently being built for the Royal Air Force (RAF).
Amid rumblings of a shortfall in the UK government’s finances, the prospects for defence, which was already faced with a funding blackhole according to the National Audit Office, could well make for grim reading once the recently announced Strategic Defence Review findings are revealed in 2025.
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With the UK government stating on 25 July that there were “no current plans” to order further E-7 Wedgetail aircraft for the RAF, the best-case scenario for the programme appears to be maintaining the acquisition for three aircraft, which is at best the bare minimum required to maintain national taskings.
At worst, three RAF E-7 AEW&C aircraft will not be enough.
Under a 2019 deal, the then UK Secretary of State for Defence Gavin Williamson, stated that five E-7s would be acquired in a multi-billion-dollar deal. This order was subsequently reduced to just three airframes as a cost-saving measure, a significant reduction in AEW coverage from the RAF’s previous fleet of seven E-3D AWACS.
The final operational sortie of the RAF E-3D fleet took place in 2021, which, with the planned arrival of the first E-7 not taking place until 2025, will mean at minimum a four-year airborne early warning gap in the UK’s defence.
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By GlobalDataIn reality, with flight and systems testing to be performed following delivery, it will likely take at least another six months before initial operating capability can be achieved, with a UK AEW capability gap extending well into its fifth year.
According to figures released in December 2022 the three E-7 Wedgetail AEW&C aircraft due to enter service with the UK RAF would cost £630m ($810.7m) each, despite savings resulting from reducing the planned buy down from an initial five platforms.
In reworking the planned acquisition, the UK MoD shaved £265m off the expected programme cost for the three aircraft to £1.89bn, down from £2.155bn originally. The original business case foresaw a spend of just short of $2bn for the entire five-strong fleet.
E-7 Wedgetail: programme progress
STS Aviation Group is converting the three secondhand Boeing 737NG aircraft into the E-7 Wedgetail configuration at its Birmingham site in the UK, with the first of the Northrop Grumman Multi-Role Electronically Scanned Array (MESA) surveillance radar having been installed on the lead platform.
As was revealed in 2021, the first two airframes of the E-7 programme, which is based on the 737 Next Generation airliner, were initially operated by commercial airlines based in China and Hong Kong before being acquired by US manufacturer Boeing via a broker.
Earlier this year, the former UK Conservative government stated that the first E-7 aircraft would not arrive in the UK until autumn 2025. The first E-7 Wedgetail was previously expected to be delivered to the UK MoD in 2024, following completion of its flight test programme and initial certification activity.
Bizarrely, the UK will acquire the fourth and fifth MESA radars from Northrop Grumman despite them having no aircraft on which to mount the sensors, it was revealed by Airforce Technology in mid-2023.
