Yay! A non Hornet on the flight deck!

I guess they decided not to go for this:

Thanks, perfectly in time for my article. Sadly doesn't mention if they got both development AC delivered, one, or any other A/C.

They are buying 10 of the? What navy is the for, Rhode Islands?

Killed the F-14 for being 70's Tech, yet the E-2 is 60's tech but has been updated....

I think they killed the F-14 for being the more the more maintenance intensive option of 2 similar capability platforms.

The Navy does not have another AWACS option but, it had the Super Hornet to replace the Tomcat.

Correct, UTR. And the Tomcat really was good only for one thing, would have required massive changes to become a true multirole platform.

Also, the Advanced Hawkeye, to my understanding, is not an upgrade. These are entirely new airframes.

The "Common Support Aircraft" would have replaced both the Greyhound and Hawkeye, and served as tanker... but it didn't materialize and likely never will.

The AHE is really a bad ass aircraft. With the ability to connect into the Aegis Link, you have a radar platform that can see 20.000 dots, track 2000 (or 4000?) at the same time and send Standard Missiles against any of those targets.

I'm sure any Iranian F-14 pilot would feel embarrassed to be shot down by an AEW bird...

Im gonna have to go ahead and disagree with you there.

The Tomcat was an exceedingly capable medium altitude attack jet. With an AIM-9x upgrade and AMRAAM she could have been a viable platform for a long, long time. ESPECIALLY in the types of fights we are in these days.

She might not be able to get down in the weeds with a Strike Eagle but, she could do everything else. And with the big screen in the back seat for IR imagery, she was more capable in some respects than the F-15E in medium altitude strike, according to the folks at the Tomcat Sunset forums.