Bombardier has just announced the elimination of 1,600 jobs and the end of production of its Learjet. But there’s another iconic aircraft the company continues to sell very well: its Global Express.
I have already written a blog where I explained that its autonomy made it an ideal device for surveillance and maritime attack missions as well as electronic warfare. About ten military airplanes around the world operate Global Express in various configurations.
The US Air Force plans to acquire at least six Global Express 6000s over the next five years. Under the name E-11A, its version of the business jets, which has flown for more than a decade, is one of the most sophisticated electronic warfare aircraft in the United States.
I write “at least” because the American air force is soon to withdraw from service four Global Hawk E-Q4B drones assigned to the same missions. Additional E-11As could therefore be acquired to fill the void left by their withdrawal.
One of the E-11As crashed in Afghanistan on January 27, 2020 during an operational sortie after suffering an engine failure. The Taliban said they shot down the plane and counted six bodies at the crash site. State media in Iran and Russia reported that a senior CIA official in Afghanistan was on the plane. A US official confirmed the deaths of the pilot and co-pilot, but denied the presence of high-ranking officers on board.
The American aviation hopes to sign the purchase contract for its next Global Express in March 2021 to have the plane delivered in June, while the equipment manufacturer Northrop Grumman installs its BACN system on board.
Nicknamed “wifi in the sky” these Global Express equipped with Battlefield Airborne Communications Node (BACN) serve as airborne relays and dispatchers so that incompatible communications systems used by different Allied armies in the same theater of operations can exchange information.
The mountainous terrain of Afghanistan and its lack of communication infrastructure also make it difficult for special forces on the ground to link up with their operational center. Via an E-11A, a secret agent can use a simple civilian cell phone to speak, via an E-11A, to the pilot of a tactical support aircraft to guide him to his target and transmit him data.
The Global Express 6000 in the E-11A configuration are easily recognizable by their dorsal and ventral protuberances, “the canoe”, which house their electronic systems. They have the same fuselage as the Regional jet CRJ but supercritical wings and a new tail.
The world’s most advanced ultra-long-haul business jet, the Global Express flies faster, farther than any aircraft in its class. It can reach any point on the planet with a single stopover and fly at an altitude of 51,000 feet.
As a sign that the Pentagon’s attention is shifting from Afghanistan to the Middle East, the three E-11As assigned to the 430th Expeditionary Electronic Warfare Squadron, which were based in Kandahar, Afghanistan were quietly redeployed in October 2020, to the Al Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates and have started conducting regular sorties over the Persian Gulf to Iraq. An E-11A has already been observed at Djibouti airfield, probably in support of American special forces in East Africa, in particular in Somalia.
Sites specializing in aeronautics have detected the movement of the E-11A towards the UAE by analyzing Flightradar24.com, which displays in real time the positioning of all planes in flight on the planet equipped with a transponder.