Defence Minister Stephen Smith and Defence Materiel Minister Jason Clare have announced that the Project AIR 5077 Airborne Early Warning & Control (AEW&C) Wedgetail has been removed from the government’s Projects of Concern list.
The project was first approved in 2000 with a budget of $3.8 billion (in today’s dollars) to procure six 737-700BBJ aircraft fitted with an advanced multi-role electronically scanned radar and 10 mission crew consoles. A ministerial release says: “The project was listed as a Project of Concern in January 2008 due to schedule delays and increasing complexity of the technical development of the project. A formal remediation plan was agreed to in 2011, with a number of key objectives identified, including the achievement of IOC.”
With IOC declared in November by the Chief of Air Force, the CEO of the DMO has recommended its removal from the Projects of Concern list, and government agreed to this recommendation.
