U.S. Navy Orders 123 E-2D Hawkeye Intercom Systems in $10M Upgrade for Carrier Air Defense.

The U.S. Navy has awarded Mathtech Inc. a $10.56 million firm-fixed-price contract to deliver 123 intercommunication systems for the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye, including units for France and Japan under Foreign Military Sales. The upgrade strengthens airborne battle management, coalition interoperability, and carrier strike group air and missile defense operations through 2027.

Information released by the U.S. Department of War on February 19, 2026, shows Mathtech Inc. of Falls Church, Virginia, has secured a $10,555,868 firm-fixed-price award to deliver 123 Intercommunication Systems for the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye, the U.S. Navy’s carrier-based airborne command-and-control workhorse. The buy covers 96 systems for Navy aircraft and 27 for Foreign Military Sales customers, with 23 destined for France and four for Japan. All work is set for Falls Church, with delivery scheduled through August 2027. Naval Supply Systems Command Weapon Systems Support in Philadelphia is the contracting activity under N00383-26-C-LA25, with the notice citing a mix of Navy working capital and FMS funding.
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Mathtech's $10.56 million contract will supply 123 E-2D Advanced Hawkeye intercommunication systems, upgrading the aircraft's internal crew coordination backbone that enables high-tempo battle management and coalition interoperability for U.S., French, and Japanese carrier operations (Picture source: U.S. DoW).

On paper, “intercommunication system” reads like cockpit plumbing, but on the E-2D, it is closer to the aircraft’s nervous system for human decision-making. The Advanced Hawkeye is operated by a five-person crew, with two pilots up front and three mission systems operators managing the tactical picture, radios, and battle management functions. Keeping those five people synced, while they are simultaneously coordinating with ships, fighters, and higher headquarters, requires more than an intercom that simply passes voice from one headset to another. It demands fast audio routing, clear separation of multiple nets, and the ability to prioritize the right call at the right second, especially when the aircraft is serving as the airborne node tying together a carrier strike group’s air and missile defense.

A Navy-backed SBIR history of Mathtech’s work on Hawkeye intercommunications helps explain what the service is paying for with this latest buy. In that program lineage, Mathtech replaced heavy copper wiring with fiber optic cabling and pushed a decentralized approach where each intercom position can remain operational even if other positions fail, a design choice that matters when reliability is measured in mission continuity rather than bench-test uptime. The same development path introduced workload-focused features that move beyond classic intercom functions, including audio replay, splitting communications into multiple outputs, expanding the number of radios and channels the crew can manage, remote control capabilities, and voice warnings. It even points to the ability to relay communications via an unmanned aerial vehicle over line-of-sight obstacles that previously would have caused dropouts, a telling indicator of how the Navy views the intercom as part of a broader communications management architecture rather than a closed, aircraft-only voice loop.

Those design choices translate into time and clarity inside the cabin when the E-2D is doing its hardest job: turning sensor detections into coordinated action. The Advanced Hawkeye’s radar and mission systems are built to detect and track targets earlier and more accurately in complex littoral, overland, and overwater environments, and the aircraft has been consistently positioned as the centerpiece of Naval Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air, often described by aircrew as a digital quarterback for the carrier strike group and theater air and missile defense. In that construct, the crew is not just watching a scope. They are deconflicting friendly tracks, assigning intercept geometry, cueing sensors, and passing actionable targeting and situational awareness across voice and data links, often while adversaries are trying to jam, deceive, or saturate the electromagnetic spectrum. An intercommunication suite that can cleanly manage multiple radios and channels, keep internal coordination crisp, and remain resilient under failures is what allows the E-2D’s human operators to stay ahead of the fight rather than drown in it.

The allied portion of the contract is a quiet strategic signal. France and Japan are not buying a generic accessory; they are buying into the same airborne battle management rhythm the U.S. Navy relies on. France’s transition from E-2C Hawkeye 2000 to E-2D is framed as preserving and expanding interoperability with U.S. naval forces, and French Hawkeyes are tied to carrier operations supporting the Charles de Gaulle strike group. Japan, meanwhile, is purchasing these systems in the same contract action that supplies the U.S. Navy, underscoring a plug-and-play approach to coalition command and control where common airborne nodes can mesh faster in combined operations. When allies share the same internal communications management backbone on the same platform, multinational crews and liaison teams are not forced to relearn basic audio workflows and radio management habits during a crisis; they can focus on tactics, rules of engagement, and the threat.

In the bigger picture, this is a reminder that modern air and missile defense is increasingly a contest of networked cognition. The E-2D’s mission is to provide airborne battle management, command and control, and surveillance as part of a naval and joint integrated air and missile defense architecture, relying on systems such as Link 16 for exchanging near-real-time tactical information across air, ground, and maritime forces. Its AN/APY-9 radar is designed to detect small, highly maneuverable targets in dense littoral and overland environments, the kind of target sets that dominate today’s cruise missile and low-altitude threat calculus. None of that matters, however, if the crew cannot rapidly translate a detection into a coordinated response across multiple units and weapon systems. Mathtech’s intercommunication systems sit exactly at that human-to-network seam, where the aircraft’s sensor advantage becomes a fleet-level firing and maneuver advantage.

There is also a defense-industrial angle hiding in plain sight. The contract notice flags Mathtech as a small business, and the company’s SBIR heritage makes clear that this capability was seeded by Navy innovation funding decades ago and matured into a production supplier for one of the Navy’s most critical airborne command and control platforms. In an era when exquisite platforms often get the headlines, this award is a case study in how specialized sub-tier suppliers keep those platforms viable, upgradeable, and supportable at scale. If the E-2D is the fleet’s airborne quarterback, contracts like this are the steady supply of the communications gear that keeps the quarterback talking, listening, and making the next play under pressure.

Written by Evan Lerouvillois, Defense Analyst.

Evan studied International Relations, and quickly specialized in defense and security. He is particularly interested in the influence of the defense sector on global geopolitics, and analyzes how technological innovations in defense, arms export contracts, and military strategies influence the international geopolitical scene.