An Electronic Systems Center spokesman at Hanscom AFB, Mass., confirms that USAF plans to purchase a Bombardier BD-700 aircraft to serve in Southwest Asia as an overhead communications-relay platform, dubbing it E-11A. USAF has been leasing the aircraft, to which it added Northrop Grumman’s Battlefield Airborne Communications Node (BACN) to enable disparate battlefield communications systems to share data.
Less than a day after arriving in the Middle East, F-15E Strike Eagles from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, N.C. defended Israel from an Iranian attack in April 2024. DUDE flight, four F-15Es from the 335th Fighter Squadron, downed two dozen Iranian drones in roughly 45 minutes.