A B-52 could provide jamming support for tactical aircraft if an experiment planned next year is successful.
As an $11 billion makeover of Boeing B-52 engines, sensors and electronics continues, the Stratofortress has won a chance to audition for a role as an airborne electronic attack platform. Next year’s planned demonstration of an RTX ALQ-249 midband jammer pod proposes a new—albeit slightly familiar—mission for the 71-year-old fleet.
Originally fielded during the early years of the Cold War as a penetrating strategic bomber, the rechristened B-52J is being upgraded by the Air Force to serve for several more decades as an airborne launcher for dozens of long-range missiles, including the nuclear-tipped RTX AGM-181 Long-Range Standoff Weapon and conventional hypersonic cruise missiles in development.
- Midband ALQ-249 jamming pod comes off the shelf
- Precise date of demonstration has not been decided
Now the Air Force is considering other supporting roles for a 75-strong fleet of eight-engine bombers that can carry up to 70,000-lb. each. The Air Force abandoned two attempts to convert B-52s into standoff jammers 15-20 years ago, but it plans to revisit the idea for a third time next year with several new twists.
“The project is intended to demonstrate capability during an exercise,” an Air Force spokesman tells Aviation Week via email. “If the Air Force receives positive feedback during the exercise, they will further evaluate the capability and mission needs.”
The Air Force has not chosen the exercises or the specific month in which to stage the standoff jamming experiment. “The demonstration of this capability on a B-52 is in the early assessment phase,” the spokesman says.
The concept was first revealed by Air Force officials during the Life-Cycle Management Center’s Industry Days event in early August. The service later published prerecorded briefings on the organization’s website by the program executive officer. Brig. Gen. William Rogers, the program executive officer for bombers, included the B-52 jamming demonstration on a list of business opportunities for industry.
“This demo will test [ALQ-249] interoperability [and] B-52 military utility and assess operational/mission effectiveness,” the Air Force spokesman explains.
The ALQ-249 is the first of three jamming pods fielded or being developed by the U.S. Navy for the Boeing EA-18G Growler. As the pod focused on jamming radio frequency signals in the middle of the radio frequency bands of the electromagnetic spectrum, the ALQ-249 usually targets emitters used for fire control and targeting. Follow-on pods, including the Next-Generation Jammer Low-Band and High-Band, are also expected to be developed.
RTX, the ALQ-249 manufacturer, envisions several roles for a standoff-jammer-equipped B-52. It could still perform the traditional long-range strike mission, then loiter in a safe airspace to support standoff jamming requirements for tactical aircraft as they enter and leave the contested airspace, says Chuck Angus, RTX’s director of requirements and capabilities for airborne electronic attacks.
While the Navy’s ALQ-249-equipped EA-18Gs continue to support ships and strike groups, the B-52s also could provide electromagnetic cover for “high-value airborne assets,” such as Boeing E-7 airborne warning and control system and Boeing KC-46 refueling aircraft, Angus tells Aviation Week via email.
The concept echoes the Air Force’s two previous attempts to integrate a long-range jammer on the B-52. The Standoff Jamming System (SOJS) program was canceled in 2006 due to cost concerns, and a follow-on effort called the Core Component Jammer (CCJ) program was canceled in 2009.
A promotional video released by Boeing in 2009 illustrated an operational scenario with the CCJ. The B-52 would first launch a salvo of RTX ADM-160 Miniature Air-Launched Decoys, including some equipped with jammers themselves. The decoys, which would emulate the electromagnetic signature of several tactical aircraft, would force the enemy to activate a radar search, exposing the location of the emitter. Then a pair of outboard-wing-mounted, broadband jammers would target those emitters with a blast of radio-frequency energy.
A demonstration 15 years later of an ALQ-249 jammer on a B-52 had several new advantages, the most important being the availability of an off-the-shelf jamming pod.
“The only new engineering work required is integration, and effective standoff jamming could be achieved from the B-52,” Angus says. “There would be no additional development required. Production quantities can be purchased on annual Navy production quantities (similar to joint weapons programs), and the [Air Force] could capitalize on [Navy] sustainment infrastructure.”
An off-the-shelf jamming pod would come with limitations, however. The EA-18G fleet, for example, is equipped with broadband ALQ-218 receivers and a techniques generator, which can address unfamiliar or new signals sent by an enemy transmitter. In the absence of an ALQ-218 receiver system, the B-52 would need to rely on input from receivers on other aircraft and its internal self-defense receiver system.
Although an ALQ-249-equipped B-52 may be limited to jamming pre-planned targets, Angus argues that limitation would not affect the value of the concept. “Most jamming assignments are mission-planned ahead of aircraft launch,” he notes.
Meanwhile, the electromagnetic threat has evolved significantly since the demise of the SOJS and CCJ programs, which left the Next-Generation Jammer family of pods on the Navy’s EA-18G fleet as the primary airborne weapon against air defense systems.
“The Standoff Jammer System was for a very, very different kind of a threat environment,” said Mark Gunzinger, director of future aerospace concepts and capability assessments at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. “They were talking about obviously regional threats and regional contingencies against, let’s say, militaries at less than a peer level. Frankly, a fighter-based, next-generation jammer was good enough. [The aircraft] had enough range for the kinds of conflicts and areas of operation.”
As the threat has advanced to a possible conflict with China, the military’s commitment to the airborne electronic attack mission has surprisingly wavered. Last year, the Navy sought to retire 25 land-based EA-18Gs assigned to support overland strike missions. Congress blocked the Navy proposal in the fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act and directed the Defense Department to submit a plan for meeting airborne electronic attack requirements.
An alternative to land-based EA-18Gs are the Air Force’s EC-37B Compass Calls and perhaps an ALQ-249-equipped B-52J, Gunzinger says.
“The threat is no longer short-range. It is very long-range,” he notes. “So having this kind of capability on a B-52 can help counter that threat. And it also might help them basically to stand in just a little bit closer, which could yield advantages in terms of the number of targets they can strike and the kinds of weapons they’d have to employ against [the targets].”
The revival of the B-52 jammer proposal comes amid a sweeping transformation of the venerable bomber fleet. In 2018, the Air Force decided to start retiring the Northrop Grumman B-2 and Rockwell B-1B in the early 2030s, consolidating the future bomber fleet on 76 upgraded B-52s and more than 100 Northrop B-21s. On each B-52, the Air Force is installing eight new Rolls-Royce F130 turbofan engines, an active, electronically scanned radar and new communications systems. The upgrades also refresh the console for the electronic warfare crewmember station with large-format, touchscreen glass displays.
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