Progress is continuing on the US Air Force’s (USAF’s) Boeing E-7 Wedgetail development programme, despite the Trump Administration’s opposition to the acquisition.
Speaking at the 2026 Air & Space Forces Warfare Symposium in Denver, Colorado, the air force’s top civilian official said the two E-7 prototypes already under contract will move forward in accordance with requirements written into the US defence budget by lawmakers in the US Congress.
“We will, of course, follow congressional direction and we will do the rapid prototypes,” said secretary of the air force Troy Meink on 24 February.
However, that does not mean the air force will necessarily progress the E-7 programme to full production, Meink says.
“They told us to deliver a plan to transition to [engineering and manufacturing development] aircraft,” he notes. “Deliver a plan does not mean we’re going to put it in the budget.”
President Donald Trump’s Pentagon chief, Pete Hegesth, has staked out a position opposing the E-7 procurement effort began under former US President Joe Biden and former air force secretary Frank Kendall – describing the airborne early warning and control jet as unsurvivable in a modern combat environment.
“We believe most, or a great deal of the ISR [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] in the future will be space-based,” Hegseth said during congressional testimony last year.
“We’re willing to continue to review things like the E-7, but from our view, investments in existing systems that carry forward that capability, alongside even bigger investments in space-based ISR, gives us the kind of advantages we need on a future battlefield,” the Pentagon chief added.
Current air force secretary Meink was also appointed to his role by Trump, and appears to share that view.
Instead of the E-7, Hegseth and other civilian leaders at the Pentagon support the development of a still-hypothetical space-based system for the Wedgetail mission known as airborne moving target indication (AMTI) – the detection and tracking of aerial threats.
That role, along with airborne battle management, is currently filled by the Cold War-era Boeing E-3 Sentry.
The USAF has been in the process of retiring the E-3 fleet, with the expectation that the E-7 will eventually take over those missions, which are collectively known as airborne early warning and control.
The Pentagon’s anti-E-7 stance has cast the ultimate fate of the programme into doubt, with the Trump Administration suggesting the air force should instead acquire active-production E-2D Advanced Hawkeyes from Northrop Grumman as a stopgap while a space-based system is developed.
Elected members of Congress, who ultimately control the Pentagon budget, oppose that idea and stepped in to require the air force to continue advancing the E-7 prototyping programme.
Legislation covering defence appropriations for fiscal year 2026 provided $1.1 billion to support that effort, while also prohibiting any termination of the programme.
Assistant secretary of the air force William Bailey, whose portfolio includes acquisitions, says the service is engaging with Congress to address lawmakers’ concerns and pursue the best solution for the AMTI mission.
“We’ll continue that conversation with Congress,” Bailey said during the Warfare Symposium in Denver.
Boeing has already begun work on the two prototype E-7 examples previously contracted by the USAF, which are meant to support design, testing and evaluation ahead of a full production decision.
Uncertainty over the US E-7 acquisition is already causing overseas customers to rethink their own purchases. Last November, a consortium of seven NATO member states dropped plans to field a fleet of E-7s, citing Washington’s apparent lack of confidence in the aircraft.
The group will instead explore European alternatives, including Saab’s Bombardier Global 6500-based GlobalEye platform.
Currently, Australia, South Korea and Turkey operate the E-7, while the UK’s first aircraft will enter service this year. Australia has deployed the 737-based jet operationally to Eastern Europe and the Middle East.
Elsewhere in the US, development on the Trump Administration’s preferred space-based method for AMTI is continuing.
Senior officials with the US Space Force and civilian space agencies who were present in Denver said that while there are still significant technical challenges with a space-based method of detecting and tracking aerial targets, they are confident such a network will eventually be deployed.
“This is hard. This is a complicated problem,” says Dan Stewart, former deputy director of the National Reconnaissance Office – the agency responsible for managing Washington’s spy satellites.
“The scope and scale of moving this layer to space is unprecedented,” Stewart adds.
Despite that challenge, the service responsible for accomplishing it remains bullish on the prospects for moving a key sensing capability from air to space.
“We went to space once before,” says Lieutenant General Gregory Gagnon, head of the US Space Force’s Combat Forces Command.
The US Air Force, Gagnon notes, had to relocate a key aerial reconnaissance capability to space during the Cold War when the Soviet Union developed the SA-2 surface-to-air missile and shot down a Lockheed Martin U-2 spy plane.
Gagnon says he is confident that within the coming decades, the ability of satellites to provide global AMTI will be as certain as their ability to provide precision navigation is today.
“I don’t think it’s going to take 30 years,” he adds.
However, even if it takes only 10 years, that still leaves the USAF with a deficit in a critical battlefield function, as the aged E-3 Sentry fleet dwindles.
Congress has enacted restrictions on further E-3 retirements unless the air force moves forward with a full-rate acquisition of the E-7.
There are currently 17 E-3s still in active US service.
The air force began retiring the airborne warning and control jets in 2023. At that time, the E-3 fleet numbered 31.
