Airborne Warning and Control System. Have you ever seen those planes with the huge thing on top like a mushroom, that's an AWAC the most widely used one is the E-3 Sentry.
It functions as a command post in the sky providing information to friendly aircraft about the location of enemy fighters and directing other fighters to engage them.
Flying high they rid the need for every aircraft to carry RADAR. Very effective aircraft, and one of, if not the most important aircraft in air battle.
The Shackleton was used as an AWAC, the Nimrod was an AWAC, the Hawkeye is an AWAC. But as I said the E-3 Sentry, which is based off the 707 airframe is the mainstay AWAC of western forces.
The Russians claim that it is able to detect stealth aircraft, but that may just be propaganda. I've never heard what range they are supposed to be able to detect a steath plane. If it is only 20 miles or so then that ability is not tha useful. Still, it offers the Russians a very big 'eye in the sky.'
I've heard that as well. They say that their supposedly obselete RADAR has less ground coverage but gives back more of a signature on planes, so they pick up F-117s.
I heard the B-2 isn't stealth anyway, it just flies under the RADAR. You don't really know though because even though the wall has come down there's always bitterness and a sense of supremecy between East and West so there's so much propaganda.
I don't know about the B-2 flying under the radar. When it was first developed it lacked the radar modes needed to make low-altitude navigation feasible.
That is what a Stealth is supposed to do, yes. I have seen, and read that the B-2s stealth capability isn't that great, so they just fly under the RADAR.
I doubt it is as great as the F-117 or F-22 simply because of its size. That being said, I imagine it still has a smaller RCS that just about anything else out there.