Sheila Vemmer / Defense News Media Group Air Force Col. Dwyer Dennis commands the E-10 Multi-Platform Radar Technology Insertion Program Systems Group, Battle Management Systems Wing, Electronic Systems Center, at Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass.

While the Air Force plans to use a Boeing 767 wide-body airplane for its E-10A demonstrator plane, the service will consider other aircraft for production models of the multi-sensor command and control aircraft, Col. Dwyer Dennis said April 27.

“It will be a separate platform decision,” said Dennis, the commander of the 851st Electronic Systems Group.

The specially designed radar and communications sensor package could be fitted onto bigger planes built by Boeing or Airbus, he told defense and industry representatives attending the 2006 Cruise Missile & IED Defense Conference: Joint Engagement of Time-Critical Air & Ground Targets, sponsored by the Defense News Media Group, in Arlington, Va..

The recent budget decisions to take $600 million from the program for this fiscal year and fiscal 2007 forced the Air Force to restructure the E-10A program, Dennis said.

“We are focused on proving the sensor technology,” he said. “It really doesn’t matter what platform is out there,” he added.

He said it’s all about the sensor — a 4-foot-high, 22-foot-long active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, equal to about 30 F-22 AESA radars strung together. The radar package will make the aircraft especially adept at tracking cruise missiles and time sensitive targets.

The same type of radar system, though about one-fifth the size, is slated for Global Hawk aircraft for target tracking.

Radar packages for Global Hawks are being fit for testing on specially designed Northrop Grumman aircraft, and the Air Force considers the tests to be the risk-reduction phase for the E-10A demonstrator.

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