Boeing delivered the latest Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS), modernized with avionics and a digital cockpit, to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Manching, Germany. This delivery is the latest in 14 and ensures compliance with current and future air traffic control and navigation requirements for NATO.
Updates include five digital displays full-color in each aircraft, which replace the quadrants of the 70 years and provide the crews with a custom engine, navigation data and radar. These digital capabilities also allow NATO to consolidate crew responsibilities.
"The Communication Navigation Surveillance / Air Traffic Management (CNS / ATM) modernization project delivers an E-3A fleet to NATO to meet the current requirements of European air traffic management"Gene commented. Mike Hain, General Manager of NATO Airborne Early Warning & Control Program Management Agency.
The first modernized NATO AWACS aircraft was modified at the Boeing plant in Seattle and delivered to NATO in November 2016. The other 13 airplanes have moved on to the modernization phase in Manching, Germany.
"We are pleased to deliver this modernized version of AWACS to NATO and be honored by the ongoing partnership with them"said Scott Johnson, CNS / ATM manager of Boeing. "AWACS modernized equipment provides real savings and efficiency so that NATO can carry out its important missions in the years to come".
NATO's AWACS fleet is the first integrated in the alliance, a multinational flying unit that provides rapid deployment, air surveillance and command and control for NATO operations.
