The U.S. Air Force Wants A New Spy Plane

Lockheed Martin

RCD: Industry Heavyweights Make Final Push for New Air Force Spy Plane

For the better part of the past decade, U.S. Air Force officials have gone back and forth on how to modernize a fleet of surveillance planes so old that the original airframes — Boeing 707 airliners — have been out of production since 1979.

The 17 planes now in service, known as the E-8C joint surveillance target attack radar systems (JSTARS), have been workhorses around the world and average 48 years in age. It is not uncommon for a portion of the fleet to get grounded for maintenance issues, increasing the pressure on the Air Force to replace them with more reliable airplanes.

“These are critical aircraft,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein said in congressional testimony earlier this year.

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WNU Editor: You know that you will need to upgrade your fleet when the 17 planes that the Air Force are using right now are on average 48 years old.