The radar dish on the E-3 is quite close to the tail. Not long until sundown for the Sentry fleet of the USAF.

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psunavy03@reddit

Yeah, because they’re 40 years old and falling apart.

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razrielle@reddit

Wait until I tell you how old the C-130, B-52, U-2, and -135 seriers aircraft are

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Obnoxious_Gamer@reddit

We keep the B-52 in service for the sole reason of it it's super funny to dunk on people with a plane older than their grandparents

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The_Gaped-Crusader@reddit

Grandpa BUFF was made for WWII, and he'll be damned if he's gonna miss it.

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razrielle@reddit

They will figure out how to make it into an orbital bomber before they retire it

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Foreign_Athlete_7693@reddit

Suprised it never featured in star trek🙃 https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryMemes/s/jz6CELtdJi

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Obnoxious_Gamer@reddit

And I will happily pay my taxes so they can do that

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Hattix@reddit

C-130J Super Hercules entered service in 1999!

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chathamharrison@reddit

We're still building C-130s, we're rebuilding the B-52s, U-2s are completely stripped & rebuilt every few thousand hours, & -135s are, well, -135s are old as dirt, yes

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nickgreydaddyfingers@reddit

All of these aircraft have been retrofitted and modernized pretty well. We're still using them for a reason, and that's because they still do the job and are beyond capable.

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razrielle@reddit

All military aircraft are stripped and rebuilt at PDM every 5ish years

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A lot of the C-130s in service are younger than the airmen maintaining them. Got to go to an airshow years back where they had a MC-130E and a C-130J-30 parked near each other, and it was amazing how different they were despite both being C-130s.

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kilosoup@reddit

So is the C-5, but it turns out replacing an airframe is expensive

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klystron@reddit

The Sentry will be replaced by the Boeing E-7

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One-Internal4240@reddit

I thought the E-7 fleet proper was due in 2028, and they'd fill the gap in 2026 or whenever with some "rapid prototype" E-7s. But the dollars for those "rapid" E-7 stopgap/prototypes (boy do I not like that combination....) only cleared in 2023, and I'd not be surprised if Boeing burned through that billion a long time ago. That's even assuming they can use stuff developed for the RAAF, which was a 70% "nope" a few years ago.

I guess, to put it briefly here, I'm a bit skeptical of Boeing that the E-7 capability is actually there, what with all this funding "rapid prototypes" while you're funding a production run of what's going to be a stale configuration. I dunno, I'm sure the wizards at Boeing have it figured out.

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nickgreydaddyfingers@reddit

Are the wizards at Boeing in the room with us?

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Zh25_5680@reddit

Same guys are going to take the better part of a decade or more to hang new engines on the B-52….

Having my doubts…

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Appropriate-Count-64@reddit

Well, tbf, neither airframe was originally designed for the sorts of modifications that Boeing is doing to them. Especially so in the case of the B-52. It’s like a house, renovating almost always takes longer than building from scratch.

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klystron@reddit

I would have thought that a lot of the equipment they need is available off the shelf. Also the RAAF exercises a lot with US forces as we have a joint defence treaty, so there should be a lot of integration already available.

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Appropriate-Count-64@reddit

Huh. Does that not come with serious loiter time reduction because it’s a 737?

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OnlyChemical6339@reddit

Why?

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Appropriate-Count-64@reddit

Because a 737 (at least in passenger service, iirc) has less range and endurance than a 707. But I don’t actually know how much the endurance changes between a 707 and 737

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OnlyChemical6339@reddit

The E-7 is based off of the 737-700ER, which has an extra ~1000 mi of range on the E-3. According to Wikipedia, both the E-3 and E-7 have comparable range.

But either way, modern variants of the 737 have more range than the 707

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