El Intrabajable Wedgetail 737 AWAC de Australia esta a punto de morir con su presupuesto de AU$ 3.500 millones....
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,24677403-953,00.html
Ian McPhedran, November 19, 2008 11:00pm
AUSTRALIA'S most troubled defence project, the $3.5 billion purchase of six early warning aircraft, is more than four years late and could collapse.
Things are so bad that US radar experts have been called in to assess whether the vital Project Wedgetail will get off the ground.
Senior military officers have admitted the prime contractor, US giant Boeing, and its sub-contractors have no idea how to fix the main problem - an unworkable radar system.
Without the radar, the planes, which are vital for detecting incoming hostile aircraft and directing a battle, would be virtually useless.
Program manager Air Vice-Marshal Chris Deeble told a Senate inquiry the first modified Boeing 737 aircraft would not be delivered until at least 2011, more than four years behind schedule.
Last year, Boeing promised to deliver the first plane next year, but later shifted it back to 2010.
Air Vice-Marshal Deeble's frank admission is the first indication of even greater problems.
"I believe that we could, if we worked through some of these significant issues, look at initial operational capability at around the end of 2011 and a full operational capability around 2012," he told the Senate.
Air Vice-Marshal Deeble qualified his timetable by saying it depended on solving the technical issues with the MESA radar built by US firm Northrop Grumman.
The radar is the centrepiece of the Wedgetail airborne early warning and control system.
It will be housed inside a large dorsal fin on the aircraft's roof and is supposed to allow operators to conduct simultaneous air and sea searches, control fighter planes and conduct area searches.
In a desperate bid for answers, the Defence Materiel Organisation has contracted the world-leading independent radar house MIT Lincoln Lab to investigate.
"That will be important for us to understand the baseline performance and any path forward for remediation of any shortfall of the radar," Air Vice-Marshal Deeble told the Senate.
He was confident the project team would eventually provide the RAAF with six workable aircraft, but had no idea how long that would take.
The RAAF is the first air force to use the MESA radar and therefore the guinea pig for a new system.
Boeing has declared forward losses of $1.5 billion on the global project.
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,24677403-953,00.html
