Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirmed on June 10 that his country will send a Boeing E-7A Wedgetail to Germany to support aerial surveillance on the border with Ukraine – which has been fighting to retake territory seized by Russia since February 2022. .
The early warning and air control (AEW&C) aircraft, accompanied by 100 crew and support personnel, will be deployed in Germany from October. The aircraft will be in Europe for about six months.
The deployment of the Australian E-7A in Germany was announced by Albanese following discussions with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz during a meeting in Berlin. The two heads of state would meet at the NATO summit, in Vilnius, Lithuania, accompanied by other representatives of countries that are members of the military bloc.
“This is an important deployment”, said Albanese to Sky News Australia, who stressed that although Australia is far from Europe, a war like this has an impact on the entire world.
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Albanese said the E-7A is expected to conduct long daily surveillance missions, tracking the shipment of resources to Ukraine via Poland and other neighboring countries.
The Prime Minister of Australia, however, anticipated that the aircraft will not enter Ukrainian, Russian or Belarusian airspace.
Based on the 737-700
Today’s most advanced radar aircraft, the Boeing E-7A can perform maritime and land surveillance missions, as well as coordinate the actions of combat aircraft while providing air control data.
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The military plane is based on the 737-700 commercial jet, with the addition of a MESA (Multi-Role Electronically Scanned Array) type radar antenna that can find threats between 650 km and 850 km away.
Australia was the first customer for the model, which has already received orders from the United Kingdom, South Korea, Turkey and, more recently, the US Air Force.
