Originally posted by bj229r
Fascinating--had no idea Airbus made early warning/awacs A/C:aok
Airbus makes airframes, so does Boeing. It was Northrop Grumman (Westinghouse) who built the E3's radar systems and radar assembly, not Boeing. Out of 18 different types of AEW&C aircraft in the world only two are based on Boeing airframes.
The aging E3 with its big rotating pulse Doppler radar is getting increasingly obsolete. The future of AEW&C is smaller planes with electronically scanned phased array radars that are as powerful or more than the E3 but with much greater multitasking capabilities and flexibility, all in a much more compact and affordable package.
Like this Swedish Ericsson Erieye system for instance (Brazilian air force):
Ericsson says that the Erieye costs between one eight and one tenth of an E-3 Sentry to operate and has quoted a cost of $500 per flight hour for the Erieye, compared to $2,700 for an E-2C Hawkeye and $8,300 for an E-3 Sentry.
The price of Brazil's Erieye systems was little more than $200 million per aircraft, or approximately the price of two fighter aircraft.
