RAAF Wedgetails-

Wedgetails finally for delivery

Early warning $3.5b Wedgetail only 90 per cent capableArticle from: Font size: Decrease Increase Email article: Email Print article: Print Ian McPhedran

January 30, 2009 12:00am
THE RAAF will receive $3.5 billion worth of hi-tech early-warning aircraft fitted with just 90 per cent of their promised capability.

The Government has agreed to revised terms with US giant Boeing for Australia’s most troubled defence project, the Wedgetail airborne early-warning and control (AEW and C) aircraft.

The RAAF is the launch customer for Wedgetail. The project is running four years’ late after big problems integrating powerful new Northrop Grumman-built radars with Boeing 737 airframes.

When the contract was signed in 1999, Wedgetail was the only untried system to bid for the job. Boeing has pledged to deliver more than 90 per cent of the capability with Wedgetail “Mark 2” after conceding that 100 per cent was impossible.

“They just can’t do it, so there is no point bashing them up over it,” a government source said.

One alternative would be for Boeing to walk away, leaving taxpayers $3.5 billion out of pocket with no capability.

Radar experts from the US have been brought in to help solve the technical problems.

The six modified Boeing 737 aircraft, fitted with the latest multi-role electronically scanned array (MESA) radar, will be a key pillar of Australia’s future air defence needs, providing simultaneous detection and tracking of targets on the ground, at sea and in the air, and feeding that information to fighter jets, warships and ground forces.

The aircraft will combine with next-generation stealth fighters and new tanker aircraft to spearhead Australia’s air defence needs for decades.

It is understood that many serious technical shortcomings, including radar shadows and the inability to distinguish between a tank and a truck, have been solved.

Insiders, including Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon, have gone softly on Boeing fearing it might cut and run.

Industry observers believe that even at 90 per cent, Wedgetail will be better than other early-warning and control platforms on the market.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24982875-662,00.html

The Wedgetail saga has been a long, strange trip and many could certainly argue for buying the alternatives in the original process but it’s now being delivered. I follow the “glass half full” thinking on this and say the Wedge’ is only 90% capable versus the RAAF’s current AEW platform which is………uh…….nothing. It’s too long in the making now to go back on the deal and the MESA promises a lot in it’s abilities when they completely work them out.

Hindsight is 20/20.