Paul Lewis/BETHPAGE
The US Congress is expected to use supplemental Kosovo funding to launch a study to replace the Northrop Grumman EA-6B Prowler electronic jammer aircraft, the limited fleet of which has been severely stretched supporting the Balkan conflict.
The US Navy planned to launch a $16 million analysis of alternatives (AoA) study in October, but was undermined by a shortage of funds. Industry is lobbying to use money from the proposed supplementary budget. "We're getting a tremendous amount of support for it," says Doug Herd, Northrop Grumman electronic warfare programme manager.
The two year study is intended to identify options for an EA-6B replacement. These include using unmanned air vehicles and developing a jammer version of the two-seat F/A-18F. The proposed Boeing/Northrop Grumman F/A-18G could be deployed by 2010.
A nearer term solution is to re-open the EA-6B production line, which Northrop Grumman confirms is a "possibility" and could produce new aircraft within four years. The last new-build aircraft was delivered in 1991, but most of the production tooling is intact. The St Augustine, Florida, plant is producing new wings for 20 Block 82 aircraft that have been removed from storage.
"What we need out of the AoA is a concrete roadmap," says Herd. "We don't have enough aircraft today to do the missions, irrespective of their airframe lives." The additional EA-6Bs will bolster the fleet to 123 aircraft, of which 104 are active at any one time.
The deployment of more than 40 EA-6Bs to Italy, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, as well as those on two aircraft carriers in the Adriatic and Gulf, is straining resources.
Aircraft numbers will be further depleted for the duration of a planned Block 89A cockpit avionics upgrade, testing of which will be completed at Patuxent River in June. This will be followed by an improved capability III jammer upgrade, including fitting new receivers and reactive jammers, that will not be completed until 2004. "It will be a tremendous challenge to keep aircraft in the fleet and modernise," says Herd.
Source: Flight International
