Overview
- Secretary Troy Meink told House appropriators the service now has contracts for five additional E-7A Wedgetails, bringing the total to seven including two prototypes.
- He said the department will work with Congress to restore near-term money after submitting a fiscal 2027 request with no funding for the E-7 program.
- Meink’s comments clarified that a $2.4 billion Boeing agreement covers five engineering-and-manufacturing-development aircraft.
- Lawmakers previously kept the effort alive by adding about $1.1 billion after the Pentagon moved to cancel it in favor of more E-2D Hawkeyes and space-based sensors.
- The E-7 is slated to replace aging E-3 Sentry radar planes, and Meink agreed with lawmakers that the Navy’s E-2D is not in the same class for the AWACS mission.