This time around, we turn our attention from combat aircraft and transports to the weird and wonderful world of support aircraft. The common thread here is information, either gathering it, moving it around, or denying it to the enemy.
AWACS
The US military has a lot of airplanes, and that in turn means it's generally a good idea to have someone coordinating all of them. It would be really helpful if that someone was mobile and had a really nice radar, and shortly after WWII, people realized that they could bundle the whole thing into an airplane, and thus was born Airborne Warning And Control Systems, or AWACS.1 It's an extremely useful concept, and they form a critical component of any serious Air Force. Read more...
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