What Is The Boeing RC-135W ‘Rivet Joint’ & Who Flies It?

The RC-135W ‘Rivet Joint’ aircraft is a reconnaissance jet whose mission, according to the official US Air Force fact sheet, is “to provide theater and national level consumers with near real-time on-scene intelligence collection, analysis, and dissemination capabilities.” RC-135W are built by Boeing, modified by L3 Technologies, and are used by the US Air Force and the Royal Air Force in forward deployed scenarios worldwide.