Navy-Air Force plan to modernize electronic warfare is 'unconvincing'.

The Navy and the Air Force are working to merge divergent nation's electronic-jamming air-visions on how to modernize the craft. 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-l11 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 mote.

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 "raking 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 nor 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 nor 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 EUCAV, 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 [pounds] Air Force Academy, in Colorado Springs, Colo.