Calvin Bailey MP has raised alarm over the UK’s troubled E-7 Wedgetail airborne early warning programme, warning of “a fairly main threat” amid delays, diminished orders and doubts over US dedication.
Talking within the Defence Committee on Thursday, Bailey stated: “E-7, we had been going to purchase 5. Then three. They’re horrendously late, overpriced. We’ve bought one in with a particular clearance, which suggests there’s one thing that we don’t find out about meaning it could’t have a standard clearance. The People have pulled their dedication to the programme and Boeing seem ambivalent.”
UK ‘dedicated’ to E-7 Wedgetail as oversight continues
Defence Secretary John Healey declined to debate the programme intimately in public session. “Mr. Bailey, when you’ve bought a collection of questions on Wedgetail particularly… when you can provide them by the clerk, then I’ll reply them,” he stated, providing as an alternative to rearrange a closed-door departmental briefing.
Bailey responded {that a} follow-up dialogue had not but occurred regardless of the Committee being beforehand briefed behind closed doorways: “There’s a fairly main threat to the programme.”
UK plans to increase E-7 radar fleet after earlier cuts
The trade underscores rising unease concerning the destiny of the UK’s diminished E-7 fleet, a platform meant to switch the now-retired E-3D Sentry as Britain’s main airborne early warning and management functionality.
Initially a five-aircraft purchase, the Wedgetail fleet was reduce to 3 in 2021 to save cash. Not less than one plane is now present process modifications within the UK however has but to obtain commonplace army clearances.
Neither the Defence Secretary nor MoD officers offered new assurances on value, timeline or operational viability within the open session.