Sentry maintenance Airmen recover E-3 in Southwest Asia on 33rd anniversary

Photo By Master Sgt. Jenifer Calhoun | Airmen assigned to the 380th Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Squadron's Sentry aircraft maintenance unit move an E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System, or AWACS, aircraft into a parking space on the flightline of a non-disclosed base in Southwest Asia, March 23. The action comes 33 years to the day when the Air Force received its first E-3 Sentry into its inventory, March 23, 1977. This E-3, assigned to the 965th Expeditionary Airborne Air Control Squadron, along with the maintenance Airmen are deployed to Southwest Asia from the 552nd Air Control Wing at Tinker Air Force Base, Okla.  

(UNDISCLOSED LOCATION)

03.25.2010

Story by Senior Airman Jenifer Calhoun 

380th Air Expeditionary Wing

SOUTHWEST ASIA -- Thirty-three years after the Air Force received its first E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft, maintenance Airmen continue to keep the aircraft ready for combat missions at a non-disclosed base in Southwest Asia.

The first of the Air Force's E-3s were sent to the 552nd Air Control Wing at Tinker Air Force Base, Okla., on March 23, 1977. Although that is history, Sentry maintainers continued to keep the aircraft going in a deployed environment 33 years later with their action, March 23.

According to it's Air Force fact sheet, the E-3 Sentry is an airborne warning and control system, or AWACS, aircraft with an integrated command and control battle management, or C2BM, surveillance, target detection, and tracking platform. The aircraft provides an accurate, real-time picture of the battlespace to the Joint Air Operations Center. AWACS provides situational awareness of friendly, neutral and hostile activity, command and control of an area of responsibility, battle management of theater forces, all-altitude and all-weather surveillance of the battle space, and early warning of enemy actions during joint, allied, and coalition operations.

The fact sheet also states the E-3 Sentry is a modified Boeing 707/320 commercial airframe with a rotating radar dome. The dome is 30 feet in diameter, six feet thick, and is held 11 feet above the fuselage by two struts. It contains a radar subsystem that permits surveillance from the Earth's surface up into the stratosphere, over land or water. The radar has a range of more than 250 miles. The radar combined with an identification friend or foe, or IFF, subsystem can look down to detect, identify and track enemy and friendly low-flying aircraft by eliminating ground clutter returns that confuse other radar systems.

The E-3 Sentry aircraft that are deployed to Southwest Asia are assigned to the 965th Expeditionary Airborne Air Control Squadron and support operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom and the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa.

• Date Taken: 03.25.2010
• Date Posted: 03.25.2010 04:35
• Story ID: 47185
• Location: (UNDISCLOSED LOCATION)