"The Boeing Co., of Wichita, Kan., is being awarded a cost plus fixed fee contract for $14,983,252. This action will accomplish aircraft integration system engineering studies to support development of critical technologies required to enable airborne stand-off electronic attack. The technologies include low-band, high-power transmitting phased arrays, mid-band high-power transmitting phased arrays, and advanced exciters."
I covered the original B-52 standoff jammer system until it was canceled in 2006, and I had a hunch this contract was its long-awaited -- and, some hope, more successful -- sequel. After checking with Boeing, my hunch was confirmed.
This relatively puny contract kick-starts what could be a decade-long effort to convert about one-third of the B-52 bomber force into long-range, radar-jammers. Interestingly, this contract indicates the USAF has abandoned the original plan to make Boeing compete for the aircraft integration role.
Click on the link posted beneath the video -- I can't resist the (admittedly stretched) tie-in to Dr. Strangelove! -- to read my news story that will appear in next week's Flight International magazine.
B-52 jammer concept revived, scaled-back
By Stephen Trimble / Washington DC
The US Air
Force has revived a plan to transform a portion of the Boeing B-52 bomber fleet
into long-range, radar-jamming platforms, formally launching a five-year study phase
on 23 June.
The revival
comes nearly three years after the USAF was forced to cancel the B-52 standoff
jammer system (SOJS) programme after cost estimates ballooned seven-fold to $7
billion. The delay has shifted the operational debut of the new jammer fleet at
least four years to 2018.
The new
programme seeks to avoid seeks to hold overall costs to about $3 billion or $4
billion by scaling back the jamming requirements and reducing the number of
B-52s involved.
The SOJS
programme was cancelled after requirements grew to target all emitter threats
in the low and middle bands of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Whereas,
the new programme continues to focus on the early warning radars that fall
mostly in the low band, but is aimed at only a subset of the potential threats
in the middle band, said Jeff Weis, Boeing's programme manager for airborne
electronic attack technology maturation.
The numbers
of B-52s expected to be modified has shrunk from the entire bomber force to 34
aircraft, Weis said. Also, the USAF also plans to buy only 24 sets of wingtip
pods during the programme, he added, so only two dozen B-52s would be able to
perform the mission at any one time.
The USAF
plans to spend $68 million over the next five years to improve the technical
maturity of the contracts involved. On 23 June, Boeing received a nearly $15
million contract to complete aircraft integration studies for new phased-array
pods called core component jammers (CCJs) and advanced exciters.
Northrop
Grumman's Integrated Systems division, Boeing's previous competitor for the
original SOJS contract, is now Boeing's subcontractor.
Potential
suppliers for the CCJ - EDO Corp, ITT Corp., Northrop's Electronic Systems
division and Raytheon - are being awarded separate contracts to develop the new
jamming systems.
The USAF is
launching the revived programme with support from the US Navy, which plans to
develop a new phased-array called the next-generation jammer to replace the
analog ALQ-99.
I wonder if the real goal of this is not to pull B-52 airframes out of service as bombers in order to justify the next gen bomber?
NGB is not going to replace the B-52. In terms of payload capacity, it's much closer to a subsonic replacement for the F-111, but probably should be thought of as a near-term upgrade of the B-2, and eventually as the B-2's replacement. The B-52 replacement doesn't come along until the late-2030s.
I think I read this in a Dale Brown novel... what was it called again? ;)
Flight of the Old Dog! I just ordered on Amazon. I must read this book.
There are a series of Dale Brown books with the EB-52 and other hight tech aircraft. If only truth came a little close to fiction or Brown's aircraft.