Reported that 2 December 2020 of the government of France and the United States signed an intergovernmental agreement in the form of an exchange of letters Letters of Offer and Acceptance - LOA on delivery United States France on line American program of the intergovernmental foreign military sales Foreign Military Sales (FMS) three deck planes of distant radar detection and management Northtrop Grumman E-2D Advanced Hawkeye. The cost of the agreement was $ 2 billion, including training and technical support packages. Delivery of the aircraft will be produced only in the years 2028-2029.
Long-range radar detection and control aircraft Northtrop Grumman E-2D Advanced Hawkeye of the US Navy and Northtrop Grumman E-2C Hawkeye of the French Navy (middle) on the deck of the American nuclear aircraft carrier CVN 77 George H. W. Bush during joint combat training off the east coast of the United States, 14.05.2018 (c) USNI
These E-2D aircraft should replace the three currently in service with the French Navy carrier-based AWACS and control aircraft of the previous Northtrop Grumman E-2C Hawkeye modification, used from the only French aircraft carrier R 91 Charles de Gaulle (usually there are two E-2C aircraft on this aircraft carrier) and are part of the naval aviation flotilla 4F. France received two E-2C aircraft in 2000 and another in 2007, all upgraded to the Hawkeye 2000 level by now. The replacement of these aircraft with the E-2D version has been discussed in France for several years and was officially announced by the French Minister of the Armed Forces, Florence Parly, in October 2019, when, apparently, an official request was submitted to the American side through the FMS.
In July 2020, the US Department of Defense's Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) sent a notification to the US Congress about the possible upcoming sale of three E - 2D aircraft to France under the US FMS program. On November 4, 2020, the purchase was approved by Minister Florence Parley.
French E-2D aircraft will also be used from the R 91 Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier, and then on [...] the larger Porte Avion Nouvelle Generation (PANG) aircraft carrier, which is planned to be built to replace it, which is due to enter service with the French Navy in 2038.
France became the second foreign customer of the E-2D modification after Japan, which plans to purchase a total of 13 aircraft to replace the same number of land-based E-2C aircraft in the Air Force of the Japan Self-Defense Forces. So far, Japan has received four E-2D aircraft, three of which arrived in Japan in March 2019 and March 2020, and one is in the United States for personnel training.
