E-2D Advanced Hawkeye Early Warning Aircraft to Get Biggest Upgrade Ever by 2030

As far as military aircraft go, which have this habit of staying on duty for decades, the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye is extremely young, having achieved initial operational capability (IOC) a little more than a decade ago, in 2014. The platform it is based on, however, the E-2 Hawkeye, dates back to the 1960s, and that explains why the aircraft is presently getting ready for the most significant enhancement program it has ever gone through.

The main contractor for the Advanced Hawkeye program, Northrop Grumman, calls it the Block II upgrade, an umbrella term for a collection of software and hardware improvements that are supposed to keep the airborne command and control surveillance platform in the sky and protected for as long as possible.

For obvious reasons, the defense contractor didn’t publicly reveal the details of the Block II, other than it employs commercial off-the-shelf technology that is both effective and cheaper than dedicated military systems. It also revealed this week that it has completed the critical design review for the package, opening the doors for these aircraft to benefit from better situational awareness, crew efficiency, and fleet sustainment.

Having reached this stage means that the tech will now get ready for integration and testing, with the official rollout of the upgrade block scheduled for the end of the decade. Northrop Grumman will roll the upgrade out to the planes it has already assembled, but when it comes to the ones it is and will be building, it will integrate it directly from the assembly lines.

As far as I can tell, the Block II will not alter the plane’s innate abilities. Powered by two Rolls-Royce turboprop engines capable of developing 5,100 shaft horsepower each, the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye can fly at top speeds of 345 mph (555 kph) and reach a maximum altitude of 37,000 feet (11,300 meters).

The plane is operated by two pilots and can accommodate an extra three mission systems operators. They are needed to run the plane’s instruments, including the state-of-the-art all-weather UHF band radar that’s supposed to represent a two-generation leap in capability compared to what came before.

The radar is capable of seeing crystal clear even over dense areas, and can detect and keep tabs on 3,000 targets in all radar modes, be these targets airborne or land-based.

There are plans to produce up to 75 E-2D Advanced Hawkeyes for the needs of the American military, but there may be more, seeing how several allied nations, including Japan, France, Egypt and Taiwan, already operate the base E-2 airborne early warning command and control platforms.

As for the cost of one of these planes, depending on a number of factors, it can go as high as $400 million. It’s unclear how much more valuable the Block II upgrade will make them.