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Aviation History
1978
1978 - 0904.PDF
(JjSffFSB STATES Of" AMERICA E-4B: the supreme airborne commander The Boeing E-4B looks very similar to a standard Boeing 747 but costs a good deal more. MIKE HIRST met the E-4B project team in Seattle before putting together this report on one of the world's more unusual military projects. LATER this month one of the most important warplanes of .recent years, the Boeing E-4B airborne command post, will make its first fully equipped flight. The aircraft first took to the air when it left Boeing's Everett plant in 1976 and flew to Greenville, Texas, where it was grounded for over a year while the major subcontractor, E-Systems, installed much of the advanced electronics. Early this year it returned to Seattle, this time to Boeing Field, and has since received equipment which was on test in Boeing laboratories. The three examples of the simpler E»4A version which are already in service with the US Air Force will be rebuilt as E-4Bs during 1980-82. Boeing is building three E-4Bs from new and will thus supply a total of six E^4s to the US Air Force. Although current operations are based at Andrews AFB, Maryland, the fleet will move to Offutt AFB, Nebraska, before 1982. The E^l is the world's largest military aircraft. Many people would claim that it is also destined to be the most expensive, though just how costly even the usually forth coming US Government will not say. Total cost of the six-aircraft programme is estimated at $1,000 million, a figure which most sources regard as being slightly on the low side. Simple arithmetic suggests that a single E-4B will cost about $160 million. Boeing gives its share of the programme as $881-3 million, and calculates flyaway unit cost at only $66-1 million. The US needs the E-4 because it has a formidably com plex defence system which depends heavily on reliable communications between several command centres and many hundreds of operational sites ranging from under ground ICBM silos to submarines at sea. The organisation's nerve centres would be prime targets in wartime, but the existence of several E-4 communications headquarters will make the task of disrupting the command network more difficult. In the E-4B America will have six identical communications centres which are mobile and therefore especially difficult targets. When acting as a national emergency airborne command post (NEACP) the E-4B will be called upon to remain airborne for long periods. The aircraft will carry engine oil and food enough to permit 72hr airborne, and will be topped up with fuel through the refuelling installation for ward of the flight-deck windows. Even though two complete crews will be carried, fatigue will inevitably limit endurance. The flying crew will have its own quarters on the upper deck, with battle staff in the rear of the aircraft, and the senior officers, possibly including the US President, in the forward fuselage. By the very nature of its mission, the unarmed E-4B will be one of the world's most important military aircraft. Survivability will be as important as it is for any fighter or bomber operated by the US Air Force. The command post will usually operate only in friendly airspace, but it will nevertheless have to be able to look after itself. No reference has ever been made to electronic counter- measures (ECM) aboard the E-4. Although such equipment might be unnecessary in theory, it could easily be hidden in such a massive airframe. And just in case the aircraft has to operate close to an active war zone, its electronic systems are also designed to survive the electromagnetic impulses produced by a nuclear blast. Airborne command posts are not entirely new, and much of the equipment which will be used on the E-4B has already seen service in aircraft such as US Air Force EC-135Js and US Navy's Lockheed Hercules. In fact, the firs!: three E-4s, which have been in service for between three and four years, carry equipment transferred from EC-135Js. These aircraft are almost empty compared with the E-4Bs which are about to join them, but they have provided valuable operating experience of the 747 air frame in the command post role. Communications equipment will fill most of the 4,620ft2 of floor space in each aircraft, and messages will flow in and out on radio wavelengths spread across the full spectrum available to modern equipment. Each of the 13 radio >- after cutaway Heading Artist's impression of the Boeing E-4B shows the prominent satellite-communications antenna behind the flight deck. No photographs of the definitive aircraft have been released yet, but production examples will vary only slightly from the configuration shown
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