NATO announced Wednesday it has opted to buy six new E-7A Wedgetail surveillance planes built by U.S. aircraft manufacturer Boeing as the 31-nation military alliance looks to update its eyes in the sky in coming years. NATO’s fleet of 14 Airborne Warning and Control System, or AWACS, aircraft are outdated and expensive to maintain. NATO said that production of the six new Wedgetails — a militarized version of the Boeing 737 jetliner — will begin “in coming years,” with the first planes expected to be ready for duty by 2031.
operating under the u.s. forces afghanistan. 18 taliban members were on site at the exchange. multiple u.s. helicopters involved as well as extensive overhead surveillance assets. i guess that could be interpreted as drones. apparently no shots fired during this. but clearly there was extraordinary amount of security on the scene. and that would be for what reason, not only to ensure bowe bergdahl s safety but to ensure nothing erupted? well, it s also to make sure the taliban delivered what they say they re going to deliver. the assets you re talking about not only include helicopter assets but also fixed wing. jet planes with the ability to strike precision guided munitions if necessary. also awac s aircraft. plus satellite downlinks to the
key areas, as we ve mentioned is around zintan, misrata, and ajdabiya it s those areas where we re working to go after the c-2 architecture that s around there, the logistics, ammo depots to put pressure on the forces inside the city itself, but we are not striking inside the city. at mirl one of your charts was a layout of where they re flying from before they go to their air patrols or to strike targets. can you talk us through what a typical sortie has looked like, how long your aircraft are spending, how much time are they taking? and what kind of wear and tear is on the airpower? let s go for slide 3, please. the aircraft are launching from many bases around europe
there been any other aircraft detected? also, you went over where some areas very quickly where the gadhafi forces are attacking. request you go over that in nor details where attacks are increasing or decreasing? first off, let s talk about the combat air forces. the reason i chose the language that i did is i don t want to imply that we ve been 100% effective, but they are not effective at all. we have not detected them flying. that does not mean they haven t been flying, we just have not detected them flying. we re continuing 24 hours a day airborne early warning, 75% provided by the coalition, so i m fairly confident that if they were flying, we would have detected it, but that said, nothing is certain. to where they are fighting, the