Air Force’s ‘WiFi in the sky’ provides a backbone for Gaza airdrops

The Air Force’s E-11A airborne communications relay planes have been referred to as “WiFi in the sky” for their ability to share battlefield data with faraway aircraft as well as troops on the ground, including across the mountainous terrain of Afghanistan for which they were developed.

The aircraft, a modified Bombardier business jet outfitted with Northrop Grumman’s Battlefield Airborne Communications Node payload , or BACN, is lesser known than the Air Force’s stalwart fleet of bombers, fighters and cargo jets. Now, with U.S. troops out of Afghanistan, the E-11 has taken on a new behind-the-scenes role supporting the multinational mission to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Since March, the 430th Expeditionary Electronic Combat Squadron, the only unit in the Air Force to fly the aircraft, has supported more than 30 of the service’s airdrops in Gaza while operating out of an undisclosed location in U.S. Central Command. Pilots with the squadron who spoke with Air Force Times in an interview declined to discuss specific missions, but offered brief insights into their work in the region.

The Air Force has participated in 40 airdrops alongside coalition partners since March . Those missions were paused for more than a month as Israel’s invasion of the city of Rafah began in early May. The U.S. flew its most recent airdrop June 9.

“The BACN mission provides the Air Force, as well as joint and international partners, line-of-sight and beyond-line-of-sight interoperability, and that’s between dissimilar platforms with varying electronic capabilities,” 430th EECS Commander Lt. Col. R. Clayton “Vector” McCart said. “We capture, translate, combine and, ultimately, relay and extend legacy and modern comms and data links.”

That means flagging potential threats to the cargo aircraft ferrying shipments of food, any course corrections or other important details from mission planners and other troops around the area.

In a region as large as CENTCOM, airdrops can be derailed by a number of variables, from weather to other flight safety issues. The BACN aircraft, which carries two pilots, can quickly relay real-time changes coming from the Combined Air Operations Center in Qatar to mission partners on the front lines.

“We can monitor progress in a way that other platforms may not be able to see … as far as locations of the assets, the weather calls, etc. Weather plays a big factor in the airdrops off the coast of Gaza,” Capt. Britton “Rad” Ellington, an E-11A pilot who previously flew the service’s now-retired E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System , or JSTARS, aircraft, said.

With a range of more than 6,900 miles and a typical sortie time of around 10 hours, the aircraft can take over where satellite phones fail, and interpret transmissions between the military’s myriad communications systems that can’t otherwise connect. While AFCENT declined to say how many of the service’s seven E-11As are operating in theater, the 430th acts as a data lilypad for more than 1,000 hours every two weeks.

“We’re just not relegated to an airdrop. For instance, we could do that as a part of a larger expectation from CENTCOM leadership, and just move around the battlespace. … We’re not really tethered to any one location,” McCart said.

The E-11A is in the process of establishing its new home at Robins Air Force Base, Georgia, within the 18th Airborne Command and Control Squadron. It’s one of four missions replacing JSTARS planes at Robins over the next several years; the squadron is expected to become fully operational by 2027.

The 430th EECS, which deploys out of the Middle East, and doubles as a training unit, will shift its training mission to Robins.

“Every sortie is a training sortie, in the sense that we learn every day that we fly,” McCart said.

Courtney Mabeus-Brown is the senior reporter at Air Force Times. She is an award-winning journalist who previously covered the military for Navy Times and The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Va., where she first set foot on an aircraft carrier. Her work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Foreign Policy and more.

空军的 E-11A 空中通信中继飞机因其能够与远距离飞机以及地面部队共享战场数据（包括在阿富汗山区，而这正是它们研发的目的），而被誉为“空中 WiFi”。

这架飞机是由庞巴迪公务机改装而成，搭载了诺斯罗普·格鲁曼公司的战场机载通信节点（BACN）有效载荷，与美国空军强大的轰炸机、战斗机和运输机机队相比，它的知名度要低得多。如今，随着美军撤出阿富汗，E-11承担起了新的幕后角色，为向加沙运送人道主义援助的多国行动提供支持。

自三月以来，空军唯一装备该型飞机的第430远征电子战中队，已在美军中央司令部一处未公开的地点执行任务，并支援了空军在加沙地带的30多次空投行动。该中队的飞行员在接受《空军时报》采访时拒绝透露具体任务，但简要介绍了他们在该地区的工作情况。

自三月以来，美国空军已与盟军伙伴共同参与了40次空投行动。由于以色列于五月初入侵拉法市，这些任务暂停了一个多月。美国最近一次空投行动发生在6月9日。

“BACN 的任务是为美国空军以及联合部队和国际伙伴提供视距内和超视距互操作性，这适用于电子能力各异的不同平台，”第 430 电子工程通信中队指挥官 R·克莱顿·“维克托”·麦卡特中校说。“我们负责采集、转换、整合，并最终中继和扩展传统和现代通信及数据链路。”

这意味着要向运送食品的货运飞机发出潜在威胁警报，并向任务规划人员和该地区的其他部队报告任何航线修正或其他重要细节。

在像中央司令部这样幅员辽阔的区域，空投行动可能受到多种因素的影响，从天气到其他飞行安全问题。配备两名飞行员的BACN飞机能够迅速将来自卡塔尔联合空中作战中心的实时变化传递给前线任务伙伴。

“我们可以以其他平台可能无法看到的方式监控进展……例如资产位置、天气预报等等。天气对加沙海岸附近的空投行动起着重要作用，”布里顿·“拉德”·埃林顿上尉说道，他是一名E-11A飞行员，此前曾驾驶过美军现已退役的E-8C联合监视目标攻击雷达系统（JSTARS）飞机。

该机航程超过6900英里，典型飞行时间约为10小时，可在卫星电话失效的情况下接管通信，并解读军方众多通信系统之间无法正常连接的传输信息。尽管美国中央司令部空军拒绝透露其七架E-11A预警机中有多少架正在战区执行任务，但第430中队每两周的飞行时间超过1000小时，充当着数据中继站的角色。

“我们并非只能进行空投。例如，我们可以按照中央司令部领导层的更大期望进行空投，并在战场上灵活机动……我们并不真正被束缚在任何一个特定地点，”麦卡特说道。

E-11A预警机正在佐治亚州罗宾斯空军基地第18空中指挥控制中队服役，这是未来几年罗宾斯基地四项替换联合监视目标攻击雷达系统（JSTARS）飞机的任务之一；该中队预计将于2027年全面投入作战。

从中东部署并兼作训练单位的第 430 电子工程与计算机系统部队将把其训练任务转移到罗宾斯基地。

麦卡特说：“每一次飞行都是一次训练飞行，因为我们每天飞行都能学到东西。”

考特尼·马布斯-布朗是《空军时报》的资深记者。她是一位屡获殊荣的记者，此前曾为《海军时报》和弗吉尼亚州诺福克的《弗吉尼亚人报》报道军事新闻，并在那里首次登上航空母舰。她的作品也曾发表在《纽约时报》、《华盛顿邮报》、《外交政策》等刊物上。