Originally Posted by
ETOPS
First airframe delivered to BHX
As STS are already working on the other two I think you'll find it's the third and currently final one. Allegedly they will be serials WT001-003
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N946BC c/n 38633 delivered 06Jan2021
N947BC c/n 40117 delivered 16Sep2021
According to flightglobal (RAF, Boeing detail E-7A Wedgetail conversion progress as third aircraft arrives - 16 July):
- Boeing UK Defence MD Anna Keeling stated the first airframe has received over 100,000 'labour touch hours'
- SRO for Wedgetail & Poseidon Air Commodore Alex Hicks is reported as saying:
- Mirroring the 'Seedcorn' activities prior to P-8, 21 RAF personnel have been embeded with RAAF Wedgetail operations, the first of whom are back in the UK working towards the design test and evaluation, and operational test and evaluation.
- Ground testing of the first UK MESA sensor is going well in Balitmore, MD
- 'Noting that the decision to reduce the E-7 fleet to just three aircraft - made as part of a defence review last year - was wholly "a ministerial decision" made prior to the current crisis in Ukraine, Hicks says:"I absolutely will be putting in a bid to buy additional assets. "I'd like five - I'd like six actually, he adds, while describing the UK reinstating its lapsed AEW capability as being "important to national security".