With these plans in mind, the Defense Ministry plans to include its policy to introduce a successor aircraft to the E-2C in fiscal 2015 in the new National Defense Program Guidelines the government will compile in December, and the midterm defense buildup program.
The successor aircraft to the E-2C could be a Boeing E-737 with a state-of-the-art on-board radar that can be refueled in the air, the sources said.