F-35 to become next electronic attack jet

From Aviation Week

F-35 To Become Electronic Attack Aircraft

Nov 30, 2008

By David A. Fulghum

After years of debate about the future of tactical, airborne electronic attack for the U.S. Air Force and Marine Corps, it appears the F-35 will become the next-generation, digital warfare aircraft for both services.

The platform most in demand in combat today is some kind of electronic attack (EA) aircraft, say military operational experts. So the pressure for more aircraft and advanced capabilities is already an operational reality. But the basic question of who does what for whom and to whom remains unanswered.

"Who will provide electronic fires to ground troops in contact?" mused Air Force Maj. Gen. Charles Davis, program executive officer for the F-35 Lightning II. "That's a core mission area for the Air Force, Navy and Marines. Delivering electronic fires will be at the heart of what F-35 does. [but] the decision about how this [and other EA aircraft will be used in the electronic fires arena has not been made."

Despite the vagaries, Davis says, "There is no doubt in my mind that eventually this airplane will fulfill the [EA] role of the EA-6B Prowler."

But development of a specialized electronic attack variant will not take the classic approach that produced the Air Force's EF-111 Raven or the Navy's EA-6B Prowler and EA-18G Growler.

While there's still nothing in the order book, top joint program officials say studies are underway that would add advanced electronic weaponry to the aircraft through the use of exterior pods and antenna arrays. Those add-ons are being designed in parallel efforts such as the Next-Generation Jammer program, and they are aimed at taking advantage of the F-35's inherent connectivity and enhancing the EA capabilities already tucked into the aircraft's interior.

"[The F-35 has] to be interoperable with 80 different platforms and trade 140+ different kinds of information from the ground, ships and aircraft," Davis says. The role of EA aircraft would add at least one more capability to its 23 missions.

Davis hinted at the compatibility of electronic emissions and stealth. "The F-35 is specifically designed to take advantage of lessons learned from [the first stealthy strike aircraft,] the F-117," he says. "Unlike the F-117, the ability to share tactically important information is built into the F-35 [without compromising its] stealth."

But the aerospace industry is not united in the view that the F-35 is the single answer to next-generation, airborne electronic attack. Some specialists worry the F-35 will be short of electrical power and payload space with virtually no room to add systems into its packed interior. The options are to put jammers and additional power supplies in the weapons bays to stay stealthy or put them on the exterior and revert to a stand-off jamming role.

"Every design has its limitations," says a senior electronics industry official with long experience in electronic warfare. "No one aircraft is going to answer all the problems facing airborne electronic attack."

The Growler has two engines, two generators, can produce additional electrical power and could carry the Next Generation Jammer (NGJ), EW specialists note. The NGJ offers a capability for longer-range standoff jamming, is being designed for carriage in a pod with its own ram-air turbine power source and would be available for many platforms.

"I would bet that the EF-35 also will carry the Next Generation Jammer," the EW specialist says. "But if it's in an external pod, [the extra radar reflectivity] will give away the aircraft's location. Yet, if you put the guts of an NGJ into the weapon bays of a single-engine single-generator aircraft in order to maintain all-aspect stealth, you are rapidly going to run out of available power to run it."

There also are questions about designing operational concepts for the F-35.

"If the aircraft has to maintain all-aspect stealth, then how can you do the necessary jamming for a close air support mission or an F-35 strike package from either in close or at standoff range?" the specialist asks.

"And electronic attack is one area where size does matter," he says. "[Despite two false starts,] an EB-52 carrying large-aperture, active electronically scanned array radar with the output of an electronic techniques generator routed through it [such as jamming, false targets, power surges, etc.] can be a very long-range electronic weapon. So, in addition to strike aircraft and bombers, tankers and 737-type aircraft [such as the Navy's E-8 Poseidon, Army and Navy Aerial Common Sensor and Air Force tanker] are also possible platforms for the Next-Generation Jammer. Finally, unmanned aircraft of the Global Hawk and Reaper size could have the necessary size, power and payload."

But will the services get together soon on a common EW/EA plan? The answer is "yes," but they will be reluctant participants because of divergent operational and budgetary needs.

"The budget will be the driver of the solution," the senior electronics industry official says. "They will run out of options before long." And that formula of pressing operational needs and shrinking defense budgets leads back to considering the JSF as a single solution. It is a position which the Marine Corps has already embraced and the Air Force appears to favor.

All three current versions of the Joint Strike Fighter will carry active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars with EW capabilities (primarily self-protection and electronic surveillance) and EA capabilities (the offensive use of false targets, network attack, advanced jamming, algorithm-packed data streams and other techniques) as part of the baseline aircraft delivered to the military.

As designed now, the F-35's combination EW/EA/AESA system allows it to penetrate well-defended targets while suppressing the ability of enemy radars to detect, exchange information about and threaten a mutually supporting group of F-35s.

"We're not bringing in a package that is designed to bring down electronic fires for a widely spread strike force," Davis says. "It's focused on getting a small force of F-35s in and out of a target area with no assistance. It involves anything that would be a threat in suppression or destruction of enemy air defenses missions."

While self-protection, penetration and strike are primary roles for the F-35, it also will have to provide support for the Marines and soldiers on the ground, particularly those in contact with the enemy.

"The F-35's data collection, integration and information sharing capabilities will transform the battlespace of the future and will redefine the close air support mission," Davis contends. But modern close air support will demand the delivery of those electronic fires, on demand for a forward air controller, just as aircraft now deliver bombs, rockets and cannon fire.

To deliver electronic fires as do the EA-6B or EA-18G "would require the addition of [advanced jamming] pods and additional EW arrays," Davis says. Right now, "We are not a wide-area, standoff EW jammer. Our jamming system is designed to get the aircraft into and out of the target area. Can you use it for other things and expand [the EA] capability? Most definitely."

The Marines are now working on delivering electronic fires from EA-6B Prowlers newly modified with the ICAP III EA system that provides jamming, silencing as well as breeching and exploiting enemy communications and signals networks. The Navy has the advanced EA-18G coming into service that will be able to attack an even more sophisticated target set when it upgrades from ICAP III to the still nascent NGJ.

Electronic attack is just one of the advanced missions expected to emerge from the F-35 program. Davis says planners are looking at three notional capabilities associated with unmanned aircraft: sharing data and information with unmanned aerial systems, helping unmanned platforms with targeting and weapons employment and linking a series of UAVs with a series of F-35s to expand attack capabilities.

"There's no doubt you could [field those capabilties] if you chose to," Davis says. "Who controls who, and who offers what data, is what we are looking at."