Boeing is expected by the end of this week to select a manufacturer to upgrade the US Air Force F-15 fleet with an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar.
Vying for this contract are Northrop Grumman and Raytheon, but no matter who wins Boeing’s protest-proof selection (take that, GAO) will be sure to set off the first Great Radar War.
The idea driving this industrial war is this: the power of a fighter aircraft’s radar may now be as important in combat as the power of its engine.
In the early 1980s, Pratt & Whitney and General Electric fought every year for their share of the USAF’s fighter engine budget. The rivalry was so intense it was chronicled in a book called the Great Engine War.
That same industrial phenomenon has started to appear in the radar market. The contract for the F-15 radar modernization will be the first of several to come.
Both Raytheon and Northrop are designing new active arrays for the F-16 in anticipation of foreign buyers (hello, India?) and eventually the USAF.
And I’ll bet you a quarter and a coke that the war will extend even to the grand prize of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. In 2001, Raytheon was on Boeing’s X-32 team, so Northrop’s design for the X-35 is on the program today. But if the USAF can re-open the F-15’s radar selection to competition, Raytheon is going to fight to take another shot at the F-35 program.
You can also safely bet that the USAF will think about radar interchangeablility when creating the requirements for the Next-Generation Long Range Strike fleet, which should enter service after 2018.
The Great Radar War will have profound implications for both industry and for the fighter community. For the first time, operators may actually have a choice of radars like they already do for engines. By implication, neither Raytheon nor Northrop can rest anymore after winning the initial contract, but must continually refresh its technology to stay in the chase for new contracts.
(Photo: Raytheon)
{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
“…Next-Generation Long Range Strike fleet, which should enter service after 2018.”
What’s this? New long range bomber, new fighter-bomber that the Air Force won’t be able to afford?
Begun, the radar war has.
who needs planes anymore when we have missiles that will do all the work for us. maybe put radar on a missile huh?
TB, the Next-Gen Strike Program isn’t very far into defining what type of aircraft they want. The need is for long range precision strike. Yes, somehow America will afford it. The Buff can’t fly on forever. The B-1 fleet ought to have been mothballed by now. Eventually, the B-2s are going to fail. And we’ve already disposed of our medium bombers. Right now, US land forces are capable of showing up to a battle because they do not and will not face a credible air-to-ground threat with AF airpower overhead. And the C4I nodes that might act as force multipliers for adversary forces are fantastically vulnerable to current USAF strike capabilities. Unless or until the US chooses to ease back to a major regional military power, a la the UK or France, we will continue to need long range strike aircraft. The questions are ‘what type(s), how many, and how much.’
pktqueens, people have tried to make various and sundry missiles or rockets that can replace guns and bombs for about as long as their have been guns and bombs. People have tried making machines replace people for about as long as their have been machines. I’m sure that someday, these will be things we can actually use as replacements for manned aircraft. But that someday is still very far away. And I really don’t fancy paying taxes for a military that would want to slap multi-million dollar radars on disposable missles in order to ‘win’ AtA engagements.
Missiles to replace airplanes experimented with in the Cold war and was not successful, to expensive.
On the B-1 why should it be mothballed? Im not being sarcastic I really don’t now much about the B-1 other than its a heavy bomber. I love the BUFF but I see that its number is coming up. B-2 I see your point, and they are already a number of years old.
Man, why are the people on this website always so dedicated to putting down the US military? There’s always ridicule for every project you can name….
In response to 22lr’s question re: the B1 retirement, there’s a few good reasons the B1 should get axed post haste. For starters, it was a quick and dirty hack job design to get a supersonic, high altitude bomber out the door when the Valkyrie program was canceled. Well, a Mach 2 bomber at 50,000 is what we all call ‘SAM bait,’ so the B1 was canceled as well. Reagan resurrected it as a low altitude subsonic bomber, a task for which the big expensive swing wings really aren’t suited. And it’s been a pretty hangar queen ever since.
Aircraft lost to birdstrikes. Huge maintenance costs. Huge operations costs. And in the end, it carries less ordinance than its siblings. Right now, the issue is aging avionics. In order to keep the damn things in the fight, they need upgraded electronics systems, and those don’t come cheap. The USAF keeps trying to retire a large number of B1s, so they can afford BUFF ELINT modifications and B1 block upgrades. Those congressmen whose districts would be effected by the draw down have actually passed laws prohibiting AF brass from cutting the Lancer fleet.
Ok, to be honest thats the first time ive really heard much about the negative side on the BONE. Ok thanks for the info.
Wait a second there, i just read that the B-1 carries up to 60 tons, compared to the BUFF 24, and B-2 22, what up with the low payload then. Just curious.
I read that from a site that defiantly got it wrong. USAF says it can carry 37.5 tons, still a lot more than any other bomber in the world.
good, wars (whether between country’s or company’s) produce great advancements.
BTW, The B-1 aint all that bad. Its payload is larger then any other bomber in the USAF fleet, and its the fastest bomber (mach 1.2) that we have as well.
I’m not sure that you should call the B-1 a hack job – lots of design work went into it. The hack aspect was taking an airframe designed for supersonic high altitude profiles and turning it into a low-altitude penetration aircraft. Even then, it’s not as egregious as turning an air superiority fighter like the F-15 into the F-15E. The bigger problem with the B-1 is that it’s a bit of a hanger queen – difficult to support, and a poor reliability record. That’s not unusual for any of the technologically advanced aircraft that came out of the late ’60s, though. The F-111 and F-14 weren’t great either, but at least benefited from a lot of ongoing development to figure out how to make them work.
The Airforce’s site calls the B-1 payload @ 75k pounds and the B-52′s @ 70k pounds. Not a huge difference here.
Id agree that the BUFF will be around for a lot longer than anything else, but the BONE does carry more, faster. I love the BUFF though, and would love to see it around for many more years.
Having been a BONE Crew Chief from 1985 to 1990, I have to say in defense that they WILL do what they are made to do in an extremely well manner. It has been the Bureaucracy that has caused this plane to Queen the hanger. Getting sufficient available QUALITY parts to keep them airborne and the quality of Contract suppliers up-to-par is the difficult part.
Rob Peters
USAF Retired
Austin Texas
Oh what a Buff, worked on the one my dad flew when I was a kid, nothing like her.
JTO
Remember that the fighter jocks currently own the A/F.
Second, Bombers are delivery systems, and the B-52 turns out to be a very good standoff launch platform.
Third, remote piloted/controlled aircraft are going to be a big money sink for quite a while.
Fourth The aging aircraft syndrome is hitting all but the latest and greatest, including the B-2.
This is really a big thing when it comes to electronics. The A/F has a tremendous amount of electronics on various a/c that should have been replaced ten years ago. The supporting test equipment packages for existing electronics systems is also in need of serious and expensive modernization.
If the Russians continue to insist on flying a propeller Bomber(the Bear),then there is nothing wrong with us flying the B-52. Putting the Litening Targeting Pod on the B-52,B-1,& B-2 bombers should help.Would AESA Radar benefit the bombers? It would seem like AESA is good for Interceptors & can be used as a poor man’s AWACS like the Iranians did with their F-14s.I read somewhere that AESA radar could be used as a weapon in its own right.Also,besides Northrop Grumman & Raytheon,I believe that Israel has AESA radar by either Eibit or LAHAV,but they were not allowed to install them on their F-16I Sufas(at least,they came with American radar systems already installed).
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