A file photo of a GlobalEye AEW&C platform in UAE service, accompanied by a pair of national F-16 fighters. The emirate has now received all five of the platforms it ordered from Saab. (Ministry of Defence of the United Arab Emirates)
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has received its fifth and final Saab GlobalEye airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft, the manufacturer announced on 17 September.
Having signed for an initial three platforms under the Swing Role Surveillance System (SRSS) programme in 2015, the UAE added two more in late December 2020.
The delivery of the last of the Bombardier Global 6000 business jet-based platforms that were contracted to the UAE Air Force and Defence (AF&D) under the SRSS programme came about four-and-a-half years after the first was handed over in late April 2020. All five aircraft were due to be with the UAE AF&D by the end of 2025, meaning that the contract has been completed ahead of schedule.
The GlobalEye platform is built around the Saab Erieye Extended Range (ER) S-band (2–4 GHz) radar that is housed in the same external dorsal ‘plank' as the company's original Erieye system. Equipped with gallium nitride (GaN) and other technologies, the Erieye ER is an active electronically scanned array (AESA) system that doubles the radar's power efficiency compared with previous Erieye iterations. It has a range in excess of 650 km that, as with all AESA radars, can be dramatically extended by focusing the radar's energy in a particular direction. Saab has said the Erieye ER is resistant to jamming and features all-weather functionality in all domains (air, sea, and land surveillance), as well as an “extremely high” tracking update rate against targets of interest.
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