Northrop Grumman Reveals First Advanced Hawkeye Fuselage

Northrop Grumman Corporation has mated the major subassemblies of the first E-2D Advanced Hawkeye test aircraft at its St. Augustine, Fla., manufacturing center into a single fuselage structure, taking the E-2D program another milestone closer to the scheduled first flight in the summer of 2007.

The E-2D Advanced Hawkeye will be the U.S. Navy's new airborne early warning and battle management system and a key node in the service's architecture for 21st century operations: Sea Power 21.

"If you read the U.S. Navy's 2006 program guide, many of the technological improvements being incorporated in the Hawkeye represent leading-edge improvements in U.S. forces, not just in the Navy's theater air and missile defense programs," said Tim Farrell, vice president of Airborne Early Warning Programs for Northrop Grumman's Integrated Systems sector. "In about a year's time, our customer community will first experience the on-delivery power and the open-ended potential of our new radar and the rest of the E-2D system as a network-centric warfare enabler.

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