The Navy and the Air Force are working to merge divergent visions
on how to modernize the nation’s electronic-jamming aircraft.
Despite differences in their approaches to fielding a new generation
of jammers, high-level Pentagon leaders told the services to work
out a compromise, because time is running out on the Prowler.
The Prowler, the Defense Department’s only tactical radar-jamming
airplane, is experiencing a much higher rate of use than was ever
planned. It is now the oldest airplane in the U.S. Navy, with an
average age of 20.3 years.
The Navy EA-6B Prowler’s primary mission is to protect strike
aircraft by electronically disrupting or destroying enemy radars
and communications. Since the airplane flies strike-support missions
for the Marines and Air Force, the replacement plan must account
for each service’s needs.
After a two-year, $16 million analysis-of-alternatives study, the
Navy recommended that the aging Prowlers be replaced, beginning
in 2010, with the EA-18, a modified F/A-18F Super Hornet. The Air
Force, however, was not sold on the plan, claiming it focused too
much on replacing the Prowler with another manned aircraft and did
not take a big-picture view of electronic-warfare requirements.
Air Force Chief of Staff John Jumper had voiced objections earlier
this year about the Analysis of Alternatives study. He essentially
charged that the AOA was a recommendation to replace one aircraft
with another, and was not considering “other elements of network
warfare, ... expendable jammers, tow-decoys, and other things that
go into helping you solve this problem.” The Air Force also
wants to include the B-52 long-range bomber and the X-45 unmanned
combat vehicle (UCAV) in the mix of potential electronic-jamming
platforms.
Officials from both services briefed their electronic-warfare plans
in June to Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology
and Logistics Edward ‘Pete’ Aldridge.
Aldridge said he was not impressed by the options presented during
that briefing. “I wouldn’t say I was unhappy,”
he said. “I would say that it was not convincing.”
The plan brought forward, Aldridge said, had “an Air Force
solution and a Navy solution rather than a U.S. Defense Department
solution. ... The Air Force had its direction, and the Navy had
theirs.”
To some degree, Aldridge sided with Jumper’s view that the
Navy was taking a narrow approach. “We need to focus on the
problem we are trying to solve rather than the platform we need
to solve the problem with,” he said. “We are after the
same threat. Why do we have to worry about whether it’s this
airplane or that airplane? Why don’t we build the capability
to go after that threat, and we can put it on any aircraft?”
This fall, the Defense Department started working on another electronic-warfare
study as part of the “defense-planning guidance” for
the fiscal 2004-2009 spending plan. Unofficial budget reports said
the Navy plans to request up to $4 billion for 2004-2009 to buy
the EA-18. Last month, Boeing received a $5 million contract to
begin “risk reduction” work on the aircraft.
“There are other alternatives being considered,” besides
the EA-18, said Aldridge. He suggested that the Pentagon might support
the development of an electronic pod system “that would do
that job and that would be carried on any type of aircraft, either
Navy or Air Force.”
The heads of aviation requirements for both services—Rear
Adm. Michael McCabe and Maj. Gen. Daniel Leaf—were scheduled
to meet with Aldridge on September 20 to present a “unified
front,” according to a Navy source.
The Navy’s preferred course is to move forward with upgrades
to the Prowler and to begin procurement of the EA-18. The cost of
the EA-18 is expected to be about 15 percent higher than the basic
Super Hornet. But the investment is needed, said Navy officials,
because keeping the Prowler flying is draining the operational accounts.
Each flying hour costs about $19,000, making it the most expensive
airplane in the Navy.
The Prowler also is labor intensive, because each airplane flies
with a crew of four. The EA-18 would have a crew of two.
Cmdr. Sterling Gilliam, an electronic-warfare requirements officer
at Navy headquarters, said that two people in the EA-18 likely could
do the job of four. “It will be a challenge, but it can be
met, with all the crew comforts and automation that come with the
F/A-18F,” he told a conference of naval aviators. “The
Prowler is more labor intensive, because it has black and white
displays and steam gages.”
Air Force officials declined to be interviewed about their specific
electronic-warfare plans. A service spokesman, Lt. Col. Kenneth
McClellan, said: “Basically, it’s impossible for anyone
to lay out for you our long-term plans on EW ... One, because out-year
dollars are classified ... Two, because we haven’t made the
ultimate selection of the new technology (though you’ll find
reports to the contrary) ... Three, because as the budget shakes
out, you can’t tell which one technology or program option
is going to play the Peter who pays Paul.”
While studies and deliberations continue at the Pentagon, Prowler
operators and procurement officials must deal with the reality that
the airplane is getting old and becoming less reliable.
Navy Lt. Peter Fey experiences first-hand the challenges of keeping
up a fleet of old airplanes like the Prowler. “We need the
EA-18, and we needed it yesterday,” said Fey, an electronic
countermeasures officer on the EA-6B.
As the only electronic jammer in the U.S. military, the twin-engine
Prowler has been a workhorse in every conflict since the mid-1990s,
when the Air Force retired its own jammers, the EF-111 Raven and
the F4G Wild Weasel. Because the fleet is relatively small—about
100 airplanes—the high tempo of operations has taken a toll
on the airframes and the electronic equipment, Fey explained during
an interview at Andrews Air Force Base, Md.
“It is an old plane,” which creates problems for both
the maintainers and operators, Fey said. The Prowler, nicknamed
“Sky Pig,” is equipped with 1960s technology, such as
“old steam gage” analog instruments. The “Star
Warriors” Naval Reserve Unit, VAQ-209, at Andrews, still operates
a plane that rolled off the first assembly line in 1969.
The Prowler’s engine troubles also worry Fey. A July memorandum
from the commander of Naval Air Systems Command to the chief of
naval operations and the commandant of the Marine Corps expressed
concerns about the J-52 P408 engine bearing failures. In January,
two planes were lost to engine failure. Subsequently, 43 engines
were taken out of service.
Fixes have been underway for several months, but the Navy expects
that the engine upgrades will drive up the cost of maintaining the
fleet. According to the memo, “As of 9 July 2002, 20 non-deployed
aircraft were down due to engines. We predict this deficit will
peak in January 2003 at approximately 28 aircraft.”
Fey confirmed that the maintenance challenges in the Prowler are
significant. “In most squadrons, it takes four planes to make
one flyable,” he said.
In 1992, Northrop Grumman rolled the last EA-6Bs off the production
line. It is now becoming harder to find parts even for the 10-year-old
airplanes, said Fey. The units end up sharing parts between aircraft.
“If you break a part, you have to take it off another one,”
said Fey. One of the Prowlers at Andrews Air Force Base needed parts
that had to be taken off a retired plane headed to the Smithsonian
Air & Space Museum.
Even though 98 aircraft are in operation today, that does not mean
they are ready to fly the next day. The number of available aircraft
varies constantly, said Fey. As a result of 15 Navy and five Marine
Corps engine rebuilds, only about 70-75 planes are in service.
The Prowler’s communication equipment often stays on an aircraft
carrier full time, so it rotates from fleet to fleet as they come
aboard the ship. This cross-decking of parts leaves crews without
enough combat equipment to train in their home base. They have to
wait till they get to sea.
Fey said the Navy has imposed strict in-flight restrictions to
make the airframes last. The Prowler, for example, is supposed to
be able to take six g’s, or gravity forces. But the restrictions
limit the pilots to taking no more than three g’s. Fey said
that crews don’t know why they even wear G-suits any more.
The Navy’s EA-6B program manager, Capt. John Scheffler, said
that, despite the concerns of operators, the Navy will “make
sure the Prowler does hold up until relieved.”
Scheffler told National Defense that Navair has taken a number
of steps to keep the engines running. The fleet may be spread thin,
but Scheffler insisted that the Prowler is meeting its operational
commitments. “We have what we have, and we are looking at
all possible avenues,” said Sheffler.
By 2005, the Navy plans to upgrade the Prowler fleet with new electronics,
under a program called the ICAP III. There are already two in the
fleet. Scheffler declined to offer specific details about the operational
capabilities of the ICAP III. In general, he said, “The ICAP
III is to electronic warfare what precision guided warfare is to
air to air combat.” The ICAP III will be the first receiver
upgrade for the EA-6B. ICAP III will use “precision jamming”
to target specific frequencies.
One advantage that the ICAP III offers, said Sheffler, is that
it’s “directly portable” to whatever follow-up
aircraft is chosen. He did not endorse the EA-18 replacement option,
however. “The whole process comes and goes with budget analysis,”
he said. “Like everything else, money drives the end result.”
The two ICAP III equipped EA-6Bs currently are undergoing testing.
The Navy expects them to enter the fleet later this year.
Electronic Warfare Advocacy
The apparent lack of consensus on electronic warfare issues should
not surprise anyone, said retired Air Force Maj. Gen. John A. Corder,
who participated in the Analysis of Alternatives study as a consultant.
“EW is an orphan and has trouble surviving in a bureaucracy,”
he said.
The guidance to the AOA was “to focus only on the joint operation
of airborne electronic attack or radar jamming,” said Corder.
The study group evaluated the Navy’s proposed alternatives—the
EA-18 or a new production Prowler called the EA-6C—and the
Air Force suggestions—the UCAV, the EB-52 or EF-22.
Corder said the Navy appears ready to make a sizeable financial
commitment to electronic warfare, unlike the Air Force, which is
“taking no real direction.”
Another critic of the Air Force EW efforts is U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk
(R-Ill.), who is also a lieutenant commander in the Navy Reserves.
Kirk served as an intelligence officer in an EA-6B squadron and
flew combat missions during the 1999 NATO air campaign over Kosovo.
He changed his status to a non-drilling reservist upon taking office.
He is a member of the Electronic Warfare Working Group, which advocates
the need for funding and support for electronic warfare programs.
“The aircraft in general, the Prowler, is kind of an example
of a classic aircraft mistake by the Air Force,” Kirk said
in an interview. “In the late 70s and early 80s, the Air Force
was so taken by stealth that they bet the whole house.”
The Air Force leadership in the early 1990s had assumed that, with
the advent of stealth aircraft, they would not need a “big
complicated strike package.” That turned out to not be the
case, he said. A stealth aircraft, such as the B-2 bomber or the
F-22 fighter, will fly undetected and also deliver the weapons undetected,
but “the problem with stealth is that stealth is directional,”
he said. The moment the aircraft turns around and heads back home,
“that thing will light up like a Christmas tree.” The
enemy takes out the aircraft on its way out. The Navy, meanwhile,
“went with what we call standard strike packages.”
Kirk believes the critical role of the Prowler became obvious after
the Serbians shot down an Air Force stealth aircraft during Operation
Allied Force. Since then, “the Defense Department as a whole
insists on having electronic support aircraft with all strike packages,”
he said. In combat, the Prowlers “have become incredibly high
value assets that everyone wants. ... It is seen as an essential
item, because if you go in with one the enemy is blind. If you don’t
have one, the White House won’t let you play.”
The Prowler, he added, was designed to support Navy strike operations,
not every service’s strike missions. The upshot is that the
fleet is wearing out faster than planned, creating problems for
the airframes, the electronics, the engines and other basic parts.
The electronics on the planes are also outdated, Kirk continued.
“The electronics are single monochrome. The data storage is
one megabyte [the size of a floppy disk].”
The ICAP III is a vast improvement, but that’s still years
away, he said.
Another source of concern is the Prowler’s oxygen system,
Kirk noted. “I don’t remember a mission that I didn’t
run out of oxygen.” In the 60’s, the plane was designed
to fly off the carrier and enter enemy territory within an hour.
The missions that the Prowler flies today are about 700 miles from
the carrier. Engineers added a gas tank, but they cannot extend
the range of the oxygen system.
He pointed out that the Navy and Air Force treat their planes very
differently. During peacetime, an Air Force plane flies training
sorties, and then “it’s in a covered domestic hangar
at a U.S. domestic airfield.” A Navy aircraft, on the other
hand, half the time is at sea, even at times of peace. “It
is going to get beat to a pulp,” he said.
The question of what should replace the Prowler does not lead to
a simple answer, because so many considerations are involved. The
procurement process slows down everything, Kirk said. “Even
if you said tomorrow we are going with the EA-18, to build it, it’s
like three to four years before it happens. ... Meanwhile, the Air
Force is caught in the bureaucratic reason.”
He predicted that the Air Force will try to work better with the
Navy. “The Air Force did not realize they had to play with
EW, but after the meeting with Aldridge they realize they do.”
The Air Force, he said, “is still having a problem with tactical
jamming.” The service, for example, has a large jamming aircraft,
the Compass Call, based on a C-130 medium-lift cargo plane. “They
take a C-130 and fill them with intelligence officers and jammers.
With a large, non-fighter airframe, range and radiation become a
huge issue. ... It doesn’t matter how big the jammer is, if
you are far away it doesn’t work.” The bigger the jammer,
the bigger the radiation problem, he said.
Kirk said that the Navy fixes the range and radiation problems
by getting close to the enemy. The only objection to that, he said,
is “you are putting more human beings into the equation.”
The Air Force is looking at solutions that keep humans out of the
battle space and remain flexible to the ever-changing needs of the
Air Force.
“So, the Air Force is wrestling with E-UCAV, and the Air
Force struggles with political convention,” said Kirk. “Every
time we go to battle, the president tells us to keep as many human
beings out of the combat zone as possible.”
The Air Force is betting significant research and development resources
on the future, he said. The UCAV is a case in point. Kirk said the
Navy has been more conservative in this arena, which may hurt its
modernization efforts in the long run.
Kirk said the question that both services should ask is “whether
you need jamming technology in the near future or 10 years from
now, or whether you can wait to go with the Cadillac.”
Lena Byrne is a cadet first class at the U.S. Air Force Academy,
in Colorado Springs, Colo.
Additional reporting by Sandra I. Erwin