[Yang Nak-gyu's Defence Club] The Newly Introduced 'Sky Command Post' Is

Candidates for Global Defense Companies Including Boeing, Saab, and L3Harris

Reconnaissance from the sky began in the 18th century. The French Montgolfier brothers conducted operations by sending hot air balloons into the sky to observe enemy positions. Operations were smooth. During the American Civil War in the 19th century, a reconnaissance balloon unit was established to signal enemy movements from the sky using flags. The United States later transformed the reconnaissance balloon unit into an aircraft unit. During the Pacific War, aircraft equipped with search radar were introduced to monitor the Japanese army. Subsequently, in the 1960s, the E-2 early warning aircraft, capable of detecting low-flying aircraft, was developed.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

▲What is an Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) aircraft?= It is called the command post in the sky. Equipped with airborne surveillance radar, it performs air surveillance and friend-or-foe identification missions and controls the battlefield. It also controls aircraft responsible for air combat and ground bombing. Because of this capability, friendly forces do not engage in air-to-air combat with each other on the battlefield. In fact, during the Gulf War from January 1991 until the end of the war, the United States destroyed a total of 103 Iraqi aircraft, and the role of AEW&C aircraft is considered to have been significant.

Operating 4 Peace Eye aircraft first introduced in 2011

▲Our Air Force’s AEW&C aircraft= Our military began efforts to introduce AEW&C aircraft in the 1980s. At that time, the Joint Chiefs of Staff made the Joint Strategic Objective Plan and made the first requirement request. It was only in 2005 that the acquisition project gained momentum, and in 2005, the project to introduce AEW&C aircraft was promoted to establish an autonomous early warning control system. About 2 trillion won was spent to purchase four E-737 aircraft from 2006 to 2012. The model was decided in November 2006, and a contract was signed with Boeing. The price per aircraft reached 400 billion won. The E-737 AEW&C aircraft are operated by Korea, Australia, and Turkey.

▲The name Peace Eye= The nickname of the AEW&C aircraft introduced by our Air Force is Peace Eye. It carries the meaning of being the "guardian of peace on the Korean Peninsula (Peace-Eye)." It was selected through a public contest. The Peace Eye aircraft is a modified Boeing B-737. The model name is E-737. The U.S. Air Force also operates the E-767 AWACS using this aircraft. AWACS stands for Airborne Warning & Control System. Therefore, when referring to AEW&C aircraft, it is more accurate to use AEW&C.

On the 1st, to commemorate Armed Forces Day, E737 Peace Eye P-3C performed formation flying at the 71st Armed Forces Day event held at Daegu Air Base (11th Fighter Wing). / Daegu = Photo by Joint Press Corps

[Image source=Yonhap News]

▲Performance of Peace Eye= With the introduction of Peace Eye, our Air Force gained the capability for focused surveillance, and the operational area expanded more than threefold. The Air Force established the 51st Air Control Wing under the direct command of the Air Operations Command to operate the Peace Eye system. Peace Eye’s greatest weapon is the MESA radar. The radar beam’s projection frequency and range can be automatically adjusted, allowing for intensified surveillance by increasing detection distance and detection frequency when focusing on specific areas in North Korea. The detection range is a radius of 370 km, capable of simultaneously tracking about 3,000 targets. It can even detect North Korea’s low-altitude infiltration AN-2 aircraft. Due to the mountainous terrain of the Korean Peninsula, there were blind spots that ground radars could not detect, which Peace Eye compensates for. Peace Eye operates at a speed of Mach 0.78 at an altitude of 9 to 12.5 km. It measures 33.6 m in length, 12.5 m in height, 34.7 m in wingspan, has a range of 6,670 km, a maximum takeoff weight of 77 tons, and an endurance of 8 hours.

Focused surveillance of blind spots on the Korean Peninsula... even detects AN-2 aircraft

▲Inside Peace Eye= Peace Eye is equipped with 10 mission consoles (instrument panels for controlling computers) that simultaneously perform 10 missions such as detection, analysis, and identification inside the aircraft and transmit information to the ground, 8 rest seats for 6 to 10 crew members, and a cockpit. The mission consoles are located at the front of the fuselage, with 5 consoles on each side. In the middle section of the fuselage, there are 8 business-class seats and one table for crew rest. All windows in this area are covered with wire mesh to protect the resting pilots from electromagnetic waves. It acts like a microwave oven door. The rear part of the aircraft is equipped with all antenna-related systems.

Additional 4 AEW&C aircraft to be introduced by 2031

▲Plans for additional acquisition= The project will start next year. The project name is the 2nd overseas procurement project for airborne control aircraft. The project budget is 2.9 trillion won. The plan is to purchase 4 airborne control aircraft by 2031. The candidate model is Boeing’s next-generation model of the E-737, the ‘E-7A.’ It is equipped with the Top Hat multi-purpose electronically scanned array (MESA) radar made by Northrop Grumman. This radar significantly reduces the 360-degree rotation interval, has a range of 6,482 km without aerial refueling, and a friend-or-foe identification range of 556 km. Another candidate is the ‘GlobalEye’ from Swedish defense company Saab. GlobalEye is a platform that mounts Saab’s latest Erieye-ER radar on Bombardier’s Global 6500 series business jet. It has an endurance of 13 hours, a detection range of 650 km, and can track thousands of targets simultaneously. L3Harris has also entered the competition with the ‘Global 6500 AEW&C’ model. L3Harris promises a dramatically lower price and maintenance cost compared to existing airborne control aircraft, as well as full domestic transfer of system integration technology. However, L3Harris has no delivery record yet.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.