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On August 3rd, a Gulfstream G550 landed at Davis-Monathan Air Force Base from Texas State Technical College in Waco (TSTC). This aircraft, known as EC-37B, will serve as the direct replacement to the aging, but extremely potent EC-130H COMPASS CALL aircraft. With over 60,000 flight hours in the CENTCOM AOR alone, the EC-37B has massive shoes to fill.
The EC-37B is built upon the CAEW (Conformal Airborne Early Warning) modification package supplied by Gulfstream’s Special Missions Department and all contract modifications are installed by L3Harris. While no details have been released by neither the Air Force nor L3, we do know the contract, of which is named “EC-X” calls for all systems from the EC-130H to be simply transferred to the EC-37B. While other variants of the CAEW use massive AESA arrays and other antennas for search and tracking of air and ground targets, its possible the EC-37B will use totally different systems.
The “BizJet” industry is one of my all time favorites about the military; taking regular ‘private’ jets and turning them into fully-loaded sensor trucks, communications hubs, early warning, etc is very unique and adds a bit of flavor to the bland grey planes we are used to seeing more and more nowadays
The EC-37B is built upon the CAEW (Conformal Airborne Early Warning) modification package supplied by Gulfstream’s Special Missions Department and all contract modifications are installed by L3Harris. While no details have been released by neither the Air Force nor L3, we do know the contract, of which is named “EC-X” calls for all systems from the EC-130H to be simply transferred to the EC-37B. While other variants of the CAEW use massive AESA arrays and other antennas for search and tracking of air and ground targets, its possible the EC-37B will use totally different systems.
The “BizJet” industry is one of my all time favorites about the military; taking regular ‘private’ jets and turning them into fully-loaded sensor trucks, communications hubs, early warning, etc is very unique and adds a bit of flavor to the bland grey planes we are used to seeing more and more nowadays
