Andy Walton. In an unprecedented move he
accused the ministry and its procurement
officials in the Defence Equipment and Support
organisation of not taking up an offer to view
classified data on Erieye radar performance.
He said UK officials had made no effort to
analyse how the company’s systems could be
integrated on A330s or other aircraft, and that
the MOD was not able to present Saab with
any formal requirement document, raising the
possibility that no such document exists.
Integrating Saab’s mission systems
onto the A330 represents, added Walton,
“the least risk of any platform onto
which we have integrated Erieye”.
The committee’s chairman, Julian Lewis
MP, then fired off a letter to the MOD’s
procurement minister, Andrew Stewart MP,
demanding to know why the ministry had
not taken up Saab’s offers – while Airbus
and Israel’s Elta are also reportedly unhappy
with the UK’s Wedgetail decision, but
have yet to make any public comment.
Never in recent history has a major UK
defence procurement been criticised by
parliamentarians and an internationaldefence company in such strident terms,
before a deal has even been signed.
The defence committee is set to hold a
further hearing to examine the Wedgetail
project, which will force Ministry of Defence
officials and senior RAF officers to justify
their analysis of the AEW&C products
available in the global marketplace.
Then the MOD has to conclude its
negotiations with Boeing and have the UK
Treasury approve the financial terms. What
looked like a done deal in the first week of
October now looks rather less clear-cut.Above: While IAI might have been an outsider in the bid to renew the RAF’s AEW&C fleet, its G550-based
Conformal Airborne Early Warning system has won export orders from Italy and Singapore. This Italian Air
Force E-550 was taking part in this year’s APROC personnel recovery exercise. Edwin Schimmel Below: The
emergence of AESA technology means that AEW&C mission systems can now be installed on bizjet-sized
aircraft. The Brazilian Air Force makes use of the E-99 AEW&C aircraft that allies the Erieye system with
the Embraer EMB-145 airframe. FABAbove: Airborne early warning large and small. A US Navy E-2C from the Naval Aviation Warfighting Development Center, Naval Air Station Fallon, Nevada,
taxies towards the runway at Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma, with USAF E-3s from the 552nd Air Control Wing visible in the background in March this year.
The US Navy is now embracing AESA, with its new E-2D equipped with AN/APY-9 radar. USAF/Greg L Davis
AFMhttp://www.airforcesmonthly.com #369 DECEMBER 2018 // 73