BOEING E-3 Sentry

I suspect that the aircraft have been used for lots more flying than was thought of. Who for instance foresaw that whey would be used over the former yugoslavia? And when we sent them from Waddington it was a two hour transit to get to their orbit, add all those hours up and thats a lot of time on the airframes. Plus theres all the exercises they took part in. I was at Butterworth in 97 and we had a Sentry with us. That aircraft had come from an exercise at Darwin, from Butterworth it went to Japan (the Japanese were interested in the software the RAF used as it was going to their 767 based AWACs). And from Japan it went to Alaska for COPE THUNDER. So those airframes have had quite a bit of use.

But heres a question, how many people can a Sentry actually carry?

Taken over Wicken Fen in 2013

One of the original Air Technicians has retired at Waddington after 51 years service in the RAF.

Just realised that the picture taken of one over Wicken Fen is one of the NATO E3s.

I have seen NATO and/or OTAN on the fuselage, Problem is I cannot recall if it was when driving past Waddington or in a photograph or film/tv segment somewhere.

canberra wrote:

I suspect that the aircraft have been used for lots more flying than was thought of. Who for instance foresaw that whey would be used over the former yugoslavia? And when we sent them from Waddington it was a two hour transit to get to their orbit, add all those hours up and thats a lot of time on the airframes. Plus theres all the exercises they took part in. I was at Butterworth in 97 and we had a Sentry with us. That aircraft had come from an exercise at Darwin, from Butterworth it went to Japan (the Japanese were interested in the software the RAF used as it was going to their 767 based AWACs). And from Japan it went to Alaska for COPE THUNDER. So those airframes have had quite a bit of use.

But heres a question, how many people can a Sentry actually carry?

Crew: Flight crew: 4 (aircraft commander, pilot, navigator, flight engineer)
Mission crew: 13–19

Ref; WIKI

According to Wiki(so it must be true) NATO are extending the life of their E3s until 2035. And as for those that have NATO on the side its the NATO ones only. Although in my time in the RAF the ones at Waddington did use NATO callsigns for some sorties, it was in fact NATO for the flight deck and MAGIC for the rear crew.

canberra wrote:

According to Wiki(so it must be true) NATO are extending the life of their E3s until 2035. And as for those that have NATO on the side its the NATO ones only. Although in my time in the RAF the ones at Waddington did use NATO callsigns for some sorties, it was in fact NATO for the flight deck and MAGIC for the rear crew.

Some of the KC135 at Mildenhall were built in 1958, so over 60 years old. What will replace their role in the fleet? If it's P8 are we back in the realms of cost, and 4 engines vs 2 and so on ?