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380AEW Article

Deployed E-3 Sentry aircraft, crews, maintainers continue combat missions in Southwest Asia

  • Published
  • By Master Sgt. Scott T. Sturkol
  • 380th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
SOUTHWEST ASIA --  Maintenance Airmen from the 380th Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Squadron Sentry aircraft maintenance unit prepared and launched an E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft on a combat mission April 24, 2010, from a non-disclosed base in Southwest Asia.

It was like any other busy day at this deployed location.

Deployed E-3 Sentry aircraft here are assigned to the 965th Expeditionary Airborne Air Control Squadron. Sentry maintenance Airmen and the E-3s are deployed from the 552nd Air Control Wing at Tinker Air Force Base, Okla., and are part of the 380th Air Expeditionary Wing in Southwest Asia supporting operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom and the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa.

"Some of the deployed areas are a dangerous place for aircraft because there is not a robust control system like we are used to in the United States," said 1st Lt. Joshua H. York, an air weapons officer with the 965th EAACS whose hometown is Ashland, Kan. "The AWACS platform as a whole provides a wide range of capabilities, among them being the airborne radar and radio suite, allowing for safer aircraft and clearer skies. We are another key link in the chain that supports our brethren fighting on the ground."

According to it's Air Force fact sheet, the E-3 Sentry is 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.

Additionally, the fact sheet states the E-3 is a modified Boeing 707/320 commercial airframe with a rotating radar dome. The dome is 30 feet (9.1 meters) in diameter, six feet (1.8 meters) thick, and is held 11 feet (3.33 meters) 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 (375.5 kilometers). 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.

Major subsystems in the E-3, the fact sheet states, are avionics, navigation, communications, sensors (radar and passive detection) and identification tools. The mission suite includes consoles that display computer-processed data in graphic and tabular format on video screens. Mission crew members perform surveillance, identification, weapons control, battle management and communications functions.

Senior Airman John Mason, an E-3 Sentry crew chief with the 380th EAMXS whose hometown is Lexington, Ky., said he and his fellow Sentry maintainers keep the planes ready for their combat missions.

"To be ready for anything that can happen to this airframe, you have to know the 'ins' and 'outs' of it to know what to fix," Airman Mason said. "What a crew chief, for example, contributes to mission success is critical. We provide that link between the aircrew and the rest of maintenance in keeping the plane ready for its next mission."

In the first three months of 2010, E-3 Sentry aircraft with the 380th AEW have flown more than 100 combat missions and handled more than 5,000 aircraft in air battle management for combat operations, said Mr. Ralph Jackson, 380th AEW historian.  That effort, he said, is saving lives.

"The deployed AWACS aircrews also handled more than 110 'troops in contact' events for the first three months of 2010," Mr. Jackson said.

Established at a non-disclosed base in Southwest Asia on Jan. 25, 2002, the 380th Air Expeditionary Wing is home to more than 1,900 personnel completing one of the most diverse combat wings in the Air Force. The wing is comprised of four groups -- an expeditionary operations group, maintenance group, mission support group and medical group -- and 12 squadrons.