E-2D Advanced Hawkeye Milestones
Couple of major milestones for the Advanced Hawkeye program announced today:
Low Rate Initial Production (LRIP):
An Acquisition Decision Memorandum, signed June 11 by the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, gave the Northrop Grumman E-2D Advanced Hawkeye program approval to enter low-rate initial production. Having demonstrated that it has met all acquisition milestone criteria, the E-2D program moves one step closer to delivering the advanced weapons system to the warfighter, and is on track to enter Operational Evaluation in FY 2012.
and
Northrop Grumman Corporation’s E-2D Advanced Hawkeye program received a $432 million contract for Low-Rate Initial Production on June 15, 2009. The contract includes two LRIP Lot 1 aircraft and advanced acquisition for two LRIP Lot II aircraft. Shown in various stages of build at the company’s East Coast Manufacturing and Flight Test Center in St. Augustine, Fla., the first pilot production aircraft is on track to deliver to the U.S. Navy in 2010.
At least there’s one plane that’s still on carrier decks that I can remember from back in the day at the Miramar airshow when I was growing up 😀
Keep up the great work, SJS 8)
While I’m not happy that this program has been stretched so long, it’s capabilities, especially those beyond AAW, will such that the first reaction will be “wow, how’d we get along so long without this?!?” The it will be “sure, we can do that, too!”
Thanks for the succinct update,
Not bad for an airframe that first flew in what, 1960, as the W2F.
Keep the info coming, Skipper