E-2D Will Be On Time And May Be Sold To UAE

The Chicago Daily Herald reports that Northrop Grumman says that the latest version of the U.S. Navy's airborne surveillance aircraft, the E-2D, is on schedule. We had written a few days ago of how the Navy was looking at cutting funding for this program to pay for other bills and that Northrop was fighting back with an advertising campaign. Now as part of the defense exhibition in the UAE Northrop is saying that the aircraft will begin service in 2010 as planned. The U.S. government has already approved the sale of the radar plane to the UAE and Northrop is discussing expediting the sale by giving them E-2C, the current active version, until the D model is available. Sales overseas may be able to help the program if the Navy goes through with the quantity reductions announced by keeping quantities higher and lowering the overall price of the system. The E-2C is already operated by Israel, Egypt, Singapore and Japan. Possibly some of these customers may look at buying the E-2D to upgrade their fleet. The UAE has been announcing contracts as the exhibition continues with reports that a C-17 or C-130 buy may be announced by the end of the week.