Netherlands signs Letter of Intent with Sweden to procure Saab GlobalEye early warning aircraft.

On September 10, 2026, the Dutch Ministry of Defence and Sweden signed a Letter of Intent to acquire one Saab GlobalEye airborne early warning and control aircraft. The single Dutch airframe will integrate into a four-aircraft operational pool alongside three Swedish S 106 jets to ensure shared capability and continuous mission coverage. This joint procurement model optimizes fleet resilience and addresses maintenance overhead without requiring a larger national acquisition.

The Netherlands intends to purchase one Saab GlobalEye aircraft for delivery in 2031 while gaining access to Swedish training assets beginning in 2028. The agreement establishes a bilateral asset-pooling framework that complements broader multinational participation in NATO's upcoming multi-domain surveillance fleet

Related topic: Discover why the Saab GlobalEye became a $1 billion priority for Gulf air defense after the 2026 Iran war

The Hague intends to fund one GlobalEye aircraft to join an existing Swedish fleet, to benefit from a lower acquisition cost, earlier crew access starting in 2028, and the ability to utilize up to three other GlobalEyes following bilateral agreements. (Picture source: Saab)

On September 10, 2026, Dutch Defence Minister Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius and Swedish Defence Minister Pål Jonson signed a Letter of Intent (LoI) under which the Netherlands intends to acquire one Saab GlobalEye AEW&C aircraft through a framework involving Sweden's FMV and operate it jointly with Sweden. For now, there is no purchase contract, Saab has not received a Dutch order, and The Hague has not announced an acquisition value. Delivery is planned for 2031, but Dutch crews will gain access to Swedish aircraft from 2028, providing three years for conversion, sensor, fighter control, and C2 training. The Dutch aircraft will join Sweden's three S 106s in a four-aircraft pool, meaning the Netherlands would own one of the four aircraft, while Dutch crews could operate other available aircraft in the pool under bilateral allocation rules. In parallel, the Netherlands is participating in NATO's acquisition of up to ten GlobalEyes, giving the country three AEW&C layers from the 2030s: one sovereign aircraft, access to four Dutch-Swedish aircraft and access to NATO's multinational force.

The four-aircraft pool addresses the principal weakness of buying a single AEW&C aircraft: access to more airframes than the Netherlands would possess nationally and reduces the operational penalty created when its single aircraft is undergoing maintenance, repair, training or modification. Sweden ordered two GlobalEyes for SEK 7.3 billion (€652.58 million) in June 2022 and a third in June 2024, with S 106 deliveries beginning in 2027 and an option remaining for a fourth Swedish aircraft. From 2028, Dutch crews can begin conversion training, mission-system qualification, radar and ESM exploitation, fighter-control work, Link 16 procedures and operational sorties before the Dutch aircraft arrives. That matters because an 11- to 12-hour sortie does not translate into a 24-hour coverage: maintaining one orbit requires replacement sorties, multiple crews, reserve aircraft, and sufficient maintenance capacity to recover aircraft between missions. A single aircraft also has no redundancy if a scheduled inspection, component failure, or software modification coincides with an operational requirement.

The GlobalEye uses the Bombardier Global 6000/6500 business jet, an aircraft substantially lighter than Boeing 707-derived E-3 Sentry or 737-derived E-7 Wedgetail. For instance, the Global 6000-based configuration measures 30.3 m long, 28.7 m wide, and 7.77 m high, with a maximum take-off weight of 45,132 kg. Two Rolls-Royce BR710A2-20 engines provide 65.6 kN each, allowing the GlobalEye to reach Mach 0.85, possess a 6,000 nmi (11,112 km) underlying range, and more than 11 hours of mission endurance. The Global 6500 raises the range to 6,600 nmi (12,200 km), the speed to Mach 0.90, and the endurance beyond 12 hours, with 9% more thrust and up to 13% lower fuel consumption. Normal surveillance altitude is 29,528 to 36,089 ft, against a 51,000-ft airframe ceiling. Visually, the GlobalEye could be recognized by the roughly 10-m dorsal radar structure, structural reinforcement, enlarged vertical tail, ventral strakes, additional electrical generation and cooling, wingtip EW equipment, antennas, mission computers, and communications equipment.

The Erieye ER S-band AESA radar is the principal surveillance sensor, with an instrumented range of 650 km, or 450 km at 30,000 ft and 550 km at 35,000 ft depending on target size, altitude, aspect, clutter, jamming, and operating mode. Against a target at 200 ft, a GlobalEye flying at 35,000 ft has a line-of-sight geometry beyond 458 km, compared with roughly 152 km for a ground radar positioned at 2,800 ft. The resulting 306-km difference equals 20 minutes of flight for a target moving at 900 km/h or 37 minutes at 500 km/h, giving a potential time advantage against low-altitude aircraft, UAVs and cruise missiles. Electronic steering also allows higher revisit rates in priority sectors without rotating the antenna, and Saab attributes to the ER a 70% detection range increase over earlier Erieye generations.

A second AESA, the Leonardo Seaspray 7500E X-band radar, adds SAR, ISAR, maritime moving-target indication and GMTI rather than duplicating the Erieye's wide-area role. The Erieye can establish a distant surface track; the Seaspray can examine it in dedicated maritime modes; an AIS can test identity; ESM/ELINT systems can detect emissions; and the Swedish S 106's FLIR Star Safire 380HD EO/IR turret can provide passive visual or infrared classification. The sensor combination is intended to detect surface contacts down to small craft such as jet skis and targets of submarine-periscope scale, although no ranges for these target classes are available. Moreover, the Erieye, Seaspray and ESM/ELINT can operate concurrently, allowing the Swedish aircraft to track airborne targets while examining ships, moving ground contacts and electromagnetic emitters during the same sortie. Higher configurations can add dedicated SIGINT, extending passive collection beyond the standard ESM/ELINT function.

Sweden's S 106 configuration normally carries two pilots and five mission operators, but the GlobalEye can be equipped with up to seven C2 workstations. This mission system correlates Erieye ER, Seaspray, EO/IR, ESM/ELINT, IFF, ADS-B and AIS data into common tracks, so one target can combine position, speed, altitude, identity, emitter and imagery information. Link 16, other tactical data links, voice and SATCOM distribute those tracks to fighters, ships, ground-based air defense units and command centers. The GlobalEye can also fly without airborne mission operators and stream sensor information to ground facilities, allowing scarce qualified operators to remain ashore for selected missions. Swedish aircraft also carry radar-warning receivers, laser-warning receivers and countermeasure dispensers but, logically, no offensive weapons, making long sensor range, altitude, stand-off distance and fighter protection the primary survivability measures.

The Netherlands currently has no national AEW&C fleet and relies partly on NATO's 14 E-3A Sentries based at Geilenkirchen, Germany. NATO selected six Boeing E-7 Wedgetails in November 2023 to replace these ageing airframes before reassessing the program, and in July 2026 Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania and Sweden moved toward a GlobalEye procurement of up to ten aircraft. Britain remains outside that acquisition with three E-7s planned for RAF Lossiemouth, leaving NATO with both GlobalEye and E-7 fleets. The Dutch aircraft therefore fills a different requirement from NATO's multinational aircraft: The Hague can task its own GlobalEye nationally, while Swedish aircraft require bilateral allocation and NATO aircraft remain subject to alliance tasking. The 1+3 arrangement consequently adds airframe redundancy without requiring the Netherlands to finance a three- or four-aircraft national fleet.

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Written by Jérôme Brahy

Jérôme Brahy is a defense analyst and documentalist at Army Recognition. He specializes in naval modernization, aviation, drones, armored vehicles, and artillery, with a focus on strategic developments in the United States, China, Ukraine, Russia, South Korea, Türkiye, and Belgium. His analyses go beyond the facts, providing context, identifying key actors, and explaining why defense news matters on a global scale.