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Boeing & US Navy Enhance EA-18 Targeting Situational Awareness Capabilities With Tablet Display

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Naval Aviation News - USA
 
 
 
Boeing & US Navy Enhance EA-18 Targeting Situational Awareness Capabilities With Tablet Display
 
The U.S. Navy and Boeing recently demonstrated new targeting technologies that greatly enhance aircrew safety and effectiveness through the rapid integration and distribution of target information across multiple aircraft.
     
The U.S. Navy and Boeing recently demonstrated new targeting technologies that greatly enhance aircrew safety and effectiveness through the rapid integration and distribution of target information across multiple aircraft.
A Naval flight officer from NAVAIR’s Air Test and Evaluation Squadron Two Three (VX-23) enters information on a Windows-based tablet prior to flight. (picture: US Navy)
     
Utilizing an advanced targeting processor, an open architecture, high-bandwidth data link, and a Windows-based tablet integrated with the mission system, the demonstration proved that Boeing EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft can detect targets over longer distances and share information more rapidly than ever before.

“This enhanced targeting capability provides our aircrews with a significant advantage, especially in an increasingly dense threat environment where longer-range targeting is critical to the fight,” said Capt. David Kindley, U.S. Navy F/A-18 and EA-18G program manager.
     
DRS Technologies Inc., a Finmeccanica Company, announced today that it has been awarded access to an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for the production and delivery of up to 180 Joint Tactical Terminal-Receivers (JTT-R) for U.S. Navy and Australian EA-18G aircraft. The contract is valued up to $12 million and will include JTT-R production engineering, test set racks, fixtures and tooling.
An EA-18G Growler from the "Shadowhawks" of Electronic Attack Squadron (VAQ) 141 is stopped by an arresting gear wire after landing aboard USS George Washington (CVN 73)
(picture: US Navy)
     
Naval aviation history was made during the Navy fleet experimentation campaign when data was integrated from multiple Growlers operating with an E-2 Hawkeye aircraft, utilizing the new high-bandwidth data link and increasing the speed and accuracy of target locating.

Use of the tablet device integrated with the aircraft mission system was another first for a Navy platform. That technology allowed aircrews to more easily access data and communicate with crews in other aircraft.

Existing Growlers will be retrofitted with the upgrades while the technology will be included as a standard offering on all new aircraft currently in production.

“The complexity of global threat environments continues to evolve,” said Dan Gillian, Boeing F/A-18 and EA-18G programs vice president. “This long-range targeting technology is essential as we advance electronic attack capabilities for the conflicts of today and tomorrow.”

The EA-18G Growler is derived from the combat-proven F/A-18F Super Hornet and is the United States’ newest and most advanced airborne electronic attack platform, providing electronic intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance data to other aircraft. The Growler has been deployed since 2010 supporting U.S. and allied forces.