Navy Welcomes Newest Eye in the Sky

[unhappycamper]

Navy Welcomes Newest Eye in the Sky
July 30, 2010
Virginian-Pilot

NORFOLK -- The Navy's newest surveillance plane doesn't look much different from its predecessor: It's got the same dinner-plate-shaped radar dome perched atop its fuselage, the same twin propellers, the same wingspan.

But the first E-2D Advanced Hawkeye delivered to the Navy has vastly improved radar systems, communications and computing abilities compared with its older sister, the E-2C, in service since the mid-1980s.

The latest model is the sixth generation of the venerable E-2, which has provided the Navy airborne early warning and control capabilities for more than 45 years. The Navy plans to buy 75 of the Advanced Hawkeyes, which cost about $180 million each, over the next 11 years, according to the Navy official who manages the program.

In a hangar at Norfolk Naval Station on Thursday, Adm. Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations, accepted delivery of the first Advanced Hawkeye from Northrop Grumman. Built in Florida, it has gone through extensive testing.

"I'm going to be brief, because that's the star of the show," Roughead told a few hundred guests at a morning ceremony, pointing at the gleaming craft with its nose nudged inside the hangar. "We have no time to lose to get this aircraft into the fleet."