Getting new engines on E-8C test aircraft is a major milestone for the Air Force, said Col. Jim Lovell, the 751st Electronic Systems Group commander.

"The reliability and fuel efficiency of these new engines will yield huge benefits to the warfighter - it's all about improving operational capability," the colonel said.

The E-8C is an airborne battle management, command and control, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platform. Its primary mission is to provide theater ground and air commanders with ground surveillance to support attack operations and targeting that contributes to the delay, disruption and destruction of enemy forces.

"We are in the final stages of installing the entire propulsion pod system - Pratt and Whitney JT8D engines, Seven-Q-Seven pylons, instrumentation, and thrust reversers - on the Air Force government-owned test aircraft at the prime contractor facility in Melbourne, Fla.," said Maj. Ryan Knapp, the re-engining program manager in the 633rd Electronic Systems Squadron. "We are on track for our upcoming first flight with the T-3 (test aircraft)."

For that to happen, the propulsion pod system had to be removed from the commercially owned 707 aircraft previously used to complete the supplemental test certification program in Mojave, Calif., earlier this year. The commercial aircraft was flown to Florida, where prime contractor Northrop Grumman is removing the pod system from the Boeing jet and putting it on the T-3.

While the re-engining of the E-8C has been years in the making, accomplishing this upgrade will yield immediate and significant benefits to the warfighter.

Among them is the flexibility for the aircraft to depart from runways of shorter length. Equipped with its current engines, E-8C takeoffs are currently limited by runway length, fuel load and environmental conditions. This limitation usually results in an increased need for tanker aircraft support.

The new engines also increase fuel efficiency by 17 percent, yielding savings in fuel and - by extension - time that's critical in collecting data. When the aircraft needs to refuel, it breaks its time "on station," meaning that it has to leave to get gas and then work sometimes hours to re-establish situational awareness and communications.

"Every time that happens, the bad guys can potentially be moving around on the ground without someone watching them, and then the Joint STARS has to come back and lock on," said Rainy McIntosh, also of the 633 ELSS. "Those types of breaks in situational awareness are not going to happen."

Additionally, the new engines will eliminate engine overheating currently experienced by the operator - another limitation, especially during summer months when temperatures can reach well above 100 degrees. With the current engines in place, the aircraft could be limited to nighttime operations during those months.

The new engine will allow for 24-hour-a-day and seven-day-a-week operations, regardless of high temperatures, Major Knapp said.

The first flight of a JSTARS equipped with the new engines is scheduled for Dec. 17. Contract actions will be negotiated in early 2009, with a contract award on the horizon a few months later. This will eventually help solidify the management portion of the program office.

After the E-8C's first flight with the new engines, the T-3 test aircraft will undergo an E-8C specific air worthiness certification test program scheduled to start in early 2009 and last through the middle of that year.

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