Editor’s Note: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the E-8C has a revolving radar dome. That aircraft is the E-3 AWACS.
Jet-engine builder Pratt & Whitney Co. is due during a Thursday afternoon ceremony in Middletown to hand over to the Air Force the first engine for the military’s upgraded aerial reconnaissance fleet.
Pratt President David Hess and other top company officials and workers will be joined at 1 p.m. at Pratt’s Aircraft Road plant by Maj. Gen. Thomas Moore, Commanding General of Georgia Air National Guard, to accept the reconfigured JT8D-219 engine for the Air Force’s E-8C aircraft.
The E-8C is the military version of the Boeing 707 that anchors the Air Force’s fleet of Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar Systems, or JSTARS.
Mounted with canoe-shaped pods bristling with radar and other advanced electronics, these airborne forward air controllers detect enemy ground targets, then guide U.S. and friendly warplanes and missiles to destroy them.
The Federal Aviation Administration recently certified several modifications to the engine first introduced in the 1950s.
