Extended vision Digital upgrades expand capabilities for AWACS aircraft BY DAN RALEY | PHOTOS BY BOB FERGUSON n the southern edge of Boeing Field in Seattle, an Airborne Warning and Control O System aircraft, commonly known as AWACS, is receiving a makeover. A stream of Boeing engineers, technicians and others approach and leave the flight line as the surveillance airplane’s most distinguishable feature—a huge disc-shaped radar dome mounted over the rear fuselage—rotates continuously. The task at hand is to upgrade flight-deck systems for this E-3 Sentry military derivative of the 707, a commercial transport widely credited with ushering in the jet age during the 1960s and ’70s. Boeing engineers such as Dan Seely view themselves as time travelers of sorts, administering to a decades-old 24 | BOEING FRONTIERS airframe. They’ve dug deep into the company archives, found original designs and relearned earlier systems. They are replacing gauges and sensors manufactured as far back as the 1940s with the latest in full-color digital display systems. “When you go through modifications to this extent, it feels like you’re making a new airplane,” Seely said. Boeing will upgrade one AWACS each for the U.S. Air Force and NATO, which, in turn, will modify its collective fleet of nearly three dozen surveillance airplanes. This will keep the E-3s operating for two or three more decades, said Jon Hunsberger, program manager for DRAGON—or Diminishing Manufacturing Sources Replacement of Avionics for Global Operations
Frontiers November 2016 Issue
To see the actual publication please follow the link above