In a hangar at Boeing’s factory in Renton, Washington, the U.S. Air Force’s future is quietly taking shape. A 23-scond video released by Boeing on April 10, 2025, showed cranes delicately lowering the fuselage of the first U.S. E-7A Wedgetail between two wings mounted on jigs. With the aircraft’s wings now attached, the vertical fin and horizontal stabilizers are next.
This skeletal airframe, unpainted and motionless, represents far more than an engineering milestone. It’s the beginning of a critical transition for the U.S. and its allies—a shift from the aging E-3 Sentry fleet, plagued by acute maintenance and parts shortages, to a new generation of airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft built for 21st-century warfare.
The E-3 Sentry, introduced into service in the late 1970s, has long served as the airborne eyes and ears of the U.S. Air Force. Built around the now-obsolete Boeing 707 airframe, the E-3’s massive rotating radar dome became an iconic symbol of American command and control power during the Cold War and beyond. But today, that legacy comes at a steep cost.
The problems are both systemic and acute. The aircraft’s production line shut down over 30 years ago. Spare parts are dwindling. Maintenance times are skyrocketing. Entire airframes have been grounded simply due to the unavailability of critical components. As Gen. Mark D. Kelly, former head of Air Combat Command, noted candidly in 2021: “There’s a reason why exactly zero airlines on the globe fly the 707… It takes miracle workers every day to just get it up in the air.”
The Air Force has already begun cutting its losses. Between April 2023 and late 2024, it retired 15 of its 31 E-3s, reducing the fleet to 16. The first to go—tail number 75-0560—was flown to the Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group, better known as “the Boneyard,” in Arizona. Others soon followed, many of which are now being cannibalized for spare parts.
An Air and Space Forces (ASF) report in April 2025 painted a grim picture of day-to-day operations. Just preparing an E-3 for flight can take up to 16 hours—even if the plane isn’t broken. “Isochronal inspections” are required every 18 months due to persistent corrosion. Electronics and wiring systems are so outdated they require a team of specialists from 11 different Air Force Specialty Codes (AFSCs)—three to four times the norm for other platforms.
The result? A mission capable rate of just 55.7% in 2024. That means fewer than nine of the Air Force’s E-3s are flyable on any given day—a figure dangerously low for a platform central to modern air campaigns.
The E-3 Sentry has long been the backbone of American and allied air command-and-control missions. With its 360-degree rotating radar dome and sophisticated surveillance capabilities, it has orchestrated air campaigns from Desert Storm to recent counterterrorism operations. But with today’s increasing emphasis on peer-level conflict with nations like China and Russia, the limitations of the aging fleet have become intolerable.
Airborne early warning is no longer just about tracking aircraft—it’s about managing a battlefield where hypersonic weapons, stealth fighters, cyber attacks, and electronic warfare all converge. That battlefield demands agility, software-driven upgrades, and multi-domain awareness. The E-3 simply wasn’t built for it.
Even its radar is now behind the curve. The mechanical rotodome, once revolutionary, can’t match the capabilities of modern electronically scanned arrays (ESAs), which offer faster, more flexible coverage and better reliability.
In contrast, the E-7A Wedgetail represents a significant leap forward. Initially developed under “Project Wedgetail” for the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), the platform has been adopted by the UK, South Korea, Turkey, NATO, and now the United States.
Based on the modern Boeing 737 Next Generation airframe, the E-7A features the Northrop Grumman Multi-Role Electronically Scanned Array (MESA) radar—a fixed dorsal sensor capable of providing 360-degree surveillance without mechanical rotation. It supports air-to-air and air-to-surface detection and integrates Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) capabilities. Its open architecture and agile software design enable rapid updates—essential in a fast-evolving threat environment.
In February 2022, the U.S. Air Force awarded Boeing a $1.2 billion contract to acquire 26 E-7s, with follow-on contracts in 2024 totaling $2.56 billion for two rapid prototype aircraft. The first U.S. E-7 Wedgetail is currently being assembled, with initial operational capability targeted by fiscal year 2027.
The Wedgetail isn’t just a U.S. solution. NATO plans to replace its 14 E-3s with E-7s by 2031. The UK, which retired its E-3Ds in 2021, has already conducted the first test flight of its converted E-7 aircraft in September 2024 at Birmingham International Airport. The RAF plans to operate three aircraft, supporting shared interoperability with U.S. and Australian forces.
France is also evaluating options to replace its four E-3Fs, with Sweden’s Saab GlobalEye AEW&C reportedly under consideration. Meanwhile, Japan operates four AWACS based on the Boeing 767 platform and Saudi Arabia retains five legacy E-3s.
This broader allied shift matters. As the U.S. recalibrates its global military posture, it increasingly depends on coalition partners. That’s why E-7 operators are exploring a “trilateral information and manning exchange” network. Col. Keven Doyle of the 552nd Air Control Wing emphasized the vision of a seamlessly integrated system among U.S., UK, and Australian forces.
Despite its promise, the Wedgetail program faces challenges. Adapting the E-7A to specific U.S. requirements requires significant engineering work, particularly in software, datalink integration, and cyber-resilience. It’s not a simple plug-and-play swap.
Meanwhile, keeping the E-3s airworthy remains a logistical and financial burden. The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (AFLCMC) awarded a $16.8 million contract in February 2025 to Plexsys Interface Products Inc. to manage “diminishing manufacturing sources”—a bureaucratic term for parts that are no longer made. The contract also covers software and mission system support.
But such stopgap measures don’t solve the underlying problem. One logistics superintendent told ASF that her team routinely hires contractors to “harvest” components from mothballed E-3s in Arizona. That’s not a sustainable strategy for high-readiness force projection.
The contrast between the two platforms is stark. The E-3 is a relic of a different era—analog-heavy, maintenance-intensive, and increasingly fragile. The E-7 is digital-first, built for plug-and-play modularity, and can evolve with changing mission demands.
This matters because the nature of airpower is changing. Great power competition requires faster decision loops, resilient battle networks, and cross-domain integration. Airborne command and control is the nerve center of this new reality.
The E-7 offers that potential. But until it reaches full operational capability—and until sufficient numbers are delivered—the U.S. and its allies are navigating a dangerous transition period. If a major conflict erupted tomorrow, the U.S. would be relying on an AWACS fleet operating at half-capacity, with parts shortages hampering every sortie.
The U.S. Air Force has made clear that the E-7 is not just a replacement, but the cornerstone of future battle management. It’s not merely about flying radar stations—it’s about information dominance. Whether directing air strikes, coordinating missile defenses, or sharing data across satellites, jets, ships, and ground troops, airborne C2 is indispensable.
But speed matters. The gap between today’s operational needs and tomorrow’s platforms must be bridged more quickly. That means faster procurement, stronger collaboration with allies, and agile integration of software-based upgrades.
The first E-7A rolling down Boeing’s assembly line is a promising start. But to secure air dominance in an increasingly contested sky, the USAF must accelerate delivery, overcome technical integration challenges, and maintain just enough E-3 capability to prevent an intelligence vacuum in the interim.
The twilight of the E-3 Sentry is not just the end of a venerable aircraft—it’s the closing chapter of an era in airborne command and control. The Wedgetail represents a bold next step. But the road from legacy to future is narrow and fraught with turbulence.
