Bombardier delivers first Global 6000 for Swedish GlobalEye programme

Sweden is to field two GlobalEye AEW&C aircraft from 2027. (Saab)

Bombardier has delivered to Sweden the first of two Global 6000 airframes for conversion to the GlobalEye airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) configuration for the Swedish Air Force (SwAF).

The business jet manufacturer announced on 19 July that the aircraft, which is the first for the SwAF but the sixth for the wider GlobalEye programme, had been delivered to Saab's Linköping facility in Sweden from its Toronto manufacturing plant in Canada.

News of the delivery came 13 months after the Swedish government contracted Saab in June 2022 to deliver two GlobalEye aircraft, with the option for two more. The SEK7.3 billion (USD712 million) order will see the two aircraft to replace the SwAF's two ageing Saab 340 (ASC 890) Erieye platforms delivered in 2027.

The GlobalEye is built around the Saab Erieye Extended Range (ER) radar that is housed in the same external dorsal ‘plank' as the company's original Erieye system. Equipped with gallium nitride 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, which can be extended by focusing the radar's energy.