Boeing Wichita has completed scheduled depot maintenance on one of the U.S.’s four E-4B National Airborne Command Centers, the company said.
The service was completed on schedule, and the plane was returned to Offutt Air Force Base, in Omaha.
A Boeing team at the base will now support final modifications to return the aircraft back to service.
The E-4B is a modified 747-200 used by the National Command Authority as a survivable command center with the ability to control U.S. forces in all levels of conflict. The E-4B has been on alert for the Air Force for 35 years.
In Wichita, the plane received maintenance and some minor modifications. It was then flown to L-3 in Greenville, Texas, for new paint.
“This was an extremely challenging PDM (programmed depot maintenance) because of the over-and-above issues that we uncovered on this aging aircraft,” Glenn Winkler, Boeing progam manager for the E-4B, said in a statement. “It is very important that we perform well, because there are only four of these jets in the fleet, so getting it back into service as quickly as possible is very important to our customer.”
