Boeing turns to drone inspections of military planes, still negotiating Wedgetail price with US

Published on February 21, 2024

Australian E-7A Wedgetail at Red Flag-Alaska 19-3

Negotiations with the US Air Force over the cost of the E-7 Wedgetail are still ongoing, a Boeing executive confirmed at the Singapore Airshow.

SINGAPORE AIRSHOW — Using a drone, artificial intelligence and autonomous systems, Boeing’s new method of inspecting airplanes for damage and structural issues is allowing the aerospace giant to cut inspection of large military aircraft down from a days long process to just a few hours, a company executive told reporters here today.

The drone flies across the aircraft’s surfaces, gathering huge amounts of data. The data is analyzed for possible problems. And since the data is retained for each tail number, Boeing and the Air Force can compare the data between inspections to do a version of change detection, Torbjorn Sjogren, vice president of government services for Boeing Defense, said at a briefing today.

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