L3Harris seeks European partners for NATO AWACS replacement

L3Harris is looking for European partners to offer its G6500 CAEW to NATO, Janes has been told. (L3Harris)

US company L3Harris is in discussions with potential European partners for the NATO Boeing E-3A Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) replacement programme.

An L3Harris representative told Janes on 14 November that the company is looking for a European prime for its offer of the Bombardier Global 6500-based conformal airborne early warning (CAEW) platform under the NATO Initial Alliance Future Surveillance and Control (IAFSC) requirement to replace its 14 remaining E-3As from 2035.

“The Bombardier Global 6500 is our baseline commercial aircraft for airborne early warning and control (AEW&C). We are working with several European primes to offer a range of missionised business jet solutions to provide intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR); maritime; and electronic warfare capabilities to Europe and NATO,” the representative said.

As recently contracted by South Korea, the G6500 CAEW is built around the Elta (a subsidiary of Israel Aerospace Industries) ELW-2085 multiband radar housed in two 1–2 GHz conformal antennas and 2–4 GHz nose and tail antennas. The radar is coupled with the Israeli company's artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms. Janes has previously reported that L3Harris' digital backbone enables upgrades to tackle updated threats.

According to Janes C4ISR & Mission Systems: Air , the architecture of the ELW-2085 active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar incorporates a dual-band (L- and S-band [2–4 GHz]) AESA AEW&C/surveillance radar, and communications electronic support/intelligence subsystems, self-protection provision, an identification friend-or-foe capability, a communications suite, and six multi-purpose operator workstations.