Boeing took an E-3 AWACS aircraft upgraded with Block40/45 improvements for a successful seven-hour test spin recently, according to an April 12 company release. Boeing calls the upgrade program “the single largest enhancement in the history of the US Air Force E-3 AWACS fleet.”
When Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Air Force Gen. Dan Caine described the 150 aircraft used in Operation Absolute Resolve, the mission to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, he referenced many by name, including the F-35 and F-22 fighters and B-1 bomber. Not specified, however, were “remotely piloted drones,” among them a secretive aircraft spotted and photographed returning to Puerto…

