![C-2 ELINT top](https://theaviationist.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/C-2-ELINT-top.jpg)
New footage shows the intelligence gathering aircraft at Iruma Air Base.
Footage and photographs have emerged of the Japanese Kawasaki C-2 Electronic Intelligence variant (also dubbed “RC-2”) operating at Iruma Air Base, north of western Tokyo, Japan.
The aircraft, a heavily modified baseline C-2 tactical transport aircraft with a modified nose section and large fairings top of the tail, fuselage and sides of it, as well as several antennas underneath the fuselage, is serialled 18-1202 and was first spotted undergoing taxi tests and first flights at Japan Air Self-Defense Force base at Gifu, home of JASDF’s Air Development and Test Command and Kawasaki Heavy Industries facility, at the beginning of February 2018. The C-2 ELINT is going to replace the obsolete JASDF’s YS-11EB ELINT aircraft.
![](https://theaviationist.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/C-2-ELINT-highlighted-fairings-706x360.jpg)
Interestingly, on Jun. 26, the “RC-2” visited Iruma, where the NAMC YS-11EB of the Electronic Intelligence Squadron are based:
今日の入間基地(^_^)v pic.twitter.com/eVxAJ0yG5q
— amuro (@amuro1415) June 26, 2018
The following video shows the C-2 ELINT taxiing and taking off from Iruma Air Base:
Little is known about the intelligence gathering variant of the C-2: considered that it will be an ELINT/COMINT (Electronic Intelligence/Communication Intelligence) platform, it’s safe to assume will be equipped with sensors and antennas required to collect signals from distance, process the data to classify and geo-locate it and then store or share the information to other aerial, naval or ground assets. More or less what other modern (or ageing) spyplanes do.
![](https://theaviationist.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/NAMC_YS-11EB_YS-11A-305_Japan_-_Air_Force_AN1722042-706x469.jpg)
Noteworthy, the first trip to Iruma made the C-2 ELINT aircraft trackable by means of ADS-B/Mode-S transponder. The track collected by our friend @CivMilAir shows the aircraft arriving from Gifu to Iruma on Jun. 26:
![](https://theaviationist.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/C-2-ADS-B-703x1024.jpg)
Top image: screenshot from @amuro1415 video on Twitter.