The E-3 Sentry is the original AWACS — the Boeing 707 with the rotating dome that has been NATO's eyes in the sky since 1977. It quarterbacked the Gulf War, and is now an aging, shrinking fleet in a retirement crisis, its E-7 replacement in turmoil — a gap laid bare when Iran destroyed one in 2026.
The WZ-9 Divine Eagle is China's giant twin-fuselage stealth-hunting drone — a high-altitude uncrewed radar aircraft built to spot F-22s and F-35s and cue missiles at them. Almost everything known about it comes from satellite imagery; almost nothing is officially confirmed.
The E-2 Hawkeye is the US Navy's carrier-based radar aircraft — the twin-turboprop rotodome plane China's KJ-600 copies. Six decades of iteration, an AESA-radar E-2D that quarterbacks the fleet and cues SM-6 missiles over the horizon, and the airborne command node over the Red Sea and Iran.
The KJ-600 is China's carrier Hawkeye — the first fixed-wing airborne early-warning aircraft to fly from a Chinese carrier, catapult-launched off the Fujian's electromagnetic system. It finally gives PLAN carriers the organic radar picture US carriers have had for decades.
The KJ-3000 is China's next-generation flying radar — a Y-20B-based heavyweight AEW&C in flight test since December 2024, which the Pentagon says will probably be the world's first with a digital radar. Beijing has never acknowledged it; every number is OSINT or state-media claim.
The "eye in the sky" that broke Boeing's monopoly — Saab's GlobalEye puts a long-range AESA radar on a business jet to watch air, sea and land at once, out past 550 km. Flown by the UAE, Sweden and France, it was picked in 2026 to replace NATO's ageing AWACS fleet.
China's most numerous modern AEW&C platform — a Y-9-based turboprop carrying a fixed three-array AESA radar for 360° coverage, in service with both the PLAAF and PLANAF and reportedly sought by Pakistan.
Russia's 1980s-era AEW&C aircraft on the Il-76 airframe, known for its rotating Shmel radome—a fleet severely diminished by two combat losses in early 2024.
The E-7 Wedgetail is Australia's and the US's next-generation AEW&C aircraft, built on a Boeing 737-700 airframe and equipped with a fixed MESA AESA radar — the chosen successor to the E-3 Sentry across NATO and a growing allied fleet.