VELCRO04 USAF E11-A departed Bradley Int'l Airport-Wimdsor Locks CT-It should stop at RAF Mildenhall for a refuel
This is a very rare AC. Used in Afghanistan and known as the Bacon plane-one of these crashed in Janauary too. In simplistic terms it is flying wi-fi but on steroids.
from Jan 28,2020
2 bodies, flight data recorder recovered from Air Force plane that crashed in Afghanistan, official says
https://www.foxnews.com/world/bodies-recovered-from-air-force-plane-crash-official-says
Bombardier E-11A BACN
Bombardier E-11A is the military variant of the civil Bombardier BD-700 Global Express for use as overhead communications-relay platform in SW Asia. It carries Northrop Grumman Battlefield Airborne Communications Node, or BACN [pronounced "bacon"], allowing disparate battlefield communications systems to share data. BACN was deployed on a test Bombardier BD-700 & originally designated RC-700A under reconnaissance classification. Re-designated E-11A under special electronics installation category.
All of the U.S. Air Force’s E-11A aircraft with the Battlefield Airborne Communications Node payload are assigned to the 430th Expeditionary Electronic Combat Squadron and operate solely out of Kandahar Airfield. BACN “is like Wi-Fi in the sky,” explained U.S. Air Force Capt. Jacob Breth, 430th EECS pilot. The BACN was developed in direct response to the communication shortfalls during Operation Red Wings, a joint U.S. military mission in Kunar Province, Afghanistan in 2005. The operation became well known following the success of the book and subsequent movie “Lone Survivor” by Marcus Luttrell, a former SEAL and the only surviving member of the mission. Due to Afghanistan’s mountainous terrain and lack of existing communication infrastructure, serious communication challenges prevented the four-man SEAL patrol from effectively establishing contact with their combat operations center, leaving them vulnerable to the attacks that claimed the lives of 19 U.S. special operations service members. The BACN works to ensure a consistent and effective form of communication in nearly any location or environment, significantly reducing the possibility of communication failure and increasing the rate of mission success. The payload, or package of sensors carried on the E-11A, allows command and control to get in contact with the troops on the ground, and vice versa, to enable mission accomplishment, Breth said.
https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/e-11.htm