The United States is the country with the most early warning aircraft in the world. It has 36 E-2Cs, 49 E-2Ds and 31 E-3 series in service, totaling more than 100 aircraft. However, even though the United States has so many and so advanced early warning aircraft, it has greatly "appreciated" similar equipment from other countries. For example, it has been recently revealed that F-35 and J-20 had a close-range "meeting". In addition to evaluating the J-20 "flying very professionally", U.S. Pacific Air Force Commander Wellsbuck also mentioned the Air Guard 500 early warning aircraft, saying that "some of their ultra-long-range air-to-air missiles have been assisted by J-500. How to interrupt this ultra-visual range kill chain is something I am very interested in."
The US military is deeply impressed by the Air Force 500
The outside world's interpretation of this is that although the US Air Force has the largest number of early warning aircraft in the world, it is technically far from the Air Force 500, especially the E-3 early warning aircraft with decades of aircraft age, which is even more "old". Some are still using antique-like CRT monitors. The attendance rate of the early E-3 has even dropped to a level that the US military cannot bear. Therefore, it is time for the US military to develop a new generation of early warning aircraft to regain its equipment advantages.
E-3 Lian Po is old
In fact, the US military has long been developing a new generation of early warning aircraft, which is the E-10 developed based on the Japanese E-767. Like the Japanese E-767, the E-10 uses the Boeing 767-400 passenger plane as the flight platform. However, the E-767 uses the E-3C early warning aircraft AN/APY-2 radar, while the E-10 uses a more advanced phased array radar system and is ready to replace the E-3 early warning aircraft, the E-8 large battlefield surveillance aircraft and the RC-135 large electronic reconnaissance aircraft.
E-10 early warning machine imagination
Japan E-767
However, it is more complicated than the three-type general-purpose F-35, so it completely ruined the E-10 early warning machine. In 2006, the then Secretary of Defense Rumsfield stopped the E-10 R&D plan, and also used the "weed tail" early warning machine developed by Boeing for Australia as a temporary transition plan. This is E-7.
E3 and E7
To be honest, the performance of the E-7 "weed tail" is not as good as the E-10. It uses the Boeing 737-700 flight platform, which is not as big as the E-10's Boeing 767-400. However, the advantage of the "weed tail" is the "balance beam" radar. Adding two small radars to provide 60° front and rear field of view, it can achieve 360° coverage, and it is cheap. Finally, after E-10 transplanted some technologies such as the "multi-platform radar technology insertion plan" to the E-7, the new generation of US early warning aircraft was finally finalized, and it was considered a spare tire to be turned into a regular one.
finally turned the spare tire.
Compared with our air alarm 500, the E-7 "weed tail" first has a huge advantage in the flight platform. The Boeing 737-700 is the most equipped passenger aircraft in the world, with impeccable attendance, comfort and adaptability. We are still using the turboprop-powered Y-9 transport aircraft platform. Even if we change it to the Y-20 in the future, it will not be comparable to the Boeing 737-700 in terms of the advantages of changing early warning aircraft. Only the C919 and CR929 in the future can reach the level of Boeing passenger aircraft.
Even for the Air Guard 3000, the flight platform cannot be compared with the passenger plane
Secondly, the Air Guard 500 has two biggest advantages. One is the data link with fighter jets such as J20, J16, which can use early warning aircraft to guide long-range air-to-air missiles. Another advantage is its anti-stealth capability. This time the J-20 and the F-35 "meeted" at close range. The outside world speculated that the Air Police 500 first discovered the F-35 with stealth capability. Due to the lack of early warning aircraft, the latter was not aware of it until the J-20 approached.
J-20 has the support of early warning aircraft
However, after replacing the E-7 "weed tail", the US military early warning aircraft will make great progress in searching for stealth targets. This is not because the US military's technology is not good, but because the opponent has not had stealth aircraft for a long time, so there is no need to consider anti-stealth capabilities at the beginning of the E-3 design. Just like the opponent has no aircraft carrier, the US military has never considered anti-aircraft carriers before.However, the US military has taken these two issues seriously. B-1B and B-52 often conduct anti-aircraft carrier drills, and US early warning aircraft will often conduct anti-stealth exercises in the future.
B1B has strong aircraft carrier capability
Of course, our air alarm 500 will continue to evolve and will evolve more advanced performance. As for the US early warning aircraft, in addition to the performance of approaching or even surpassing, it is likely to continue to exceed us in terms of quantity.
