Boeing, BAE Systems to build airborne electronic warfare (EW) to help F-15 operate against modern EW threats
WRIGHT-PATTERSON AFB, Ohio – U.S. Air Force airborne electronic warfare (EW) experts are the Boeing Co. and BAE Systems to provide EW systems for the U.S. F-15E jet fighter-bomber under terms of a $21.3 million order announced last week.
Officials of the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, are asking the Boeing Defense, Space & Security segment in St. Louis to install the F-15 Eagle Passive/Active Warning and Survivability System (EPAWSS) on F-15E aircraft.
The BAE Systems Electronic Systems segment in Nashua, N.H., is the primary designer and manufacturer of the F-15 EPAWSS airborne EW avionics.
The F-15 EPAWSS replaces an analog federated avionics system with a next-generation, digital, integrated EW suite that enables the F-15 to operate in the presence of modern EW threats with dense radio-frequency backgrounds.
Related: Enabling technologies for airborne electronic warfare
The updated EW avionics improves pilot situational awareness with the capability to autonomously detect, identify, and locate threat systems, and then deny, degrade, and disrupt those threats.
Boeing manufactures the F-15 and serves as the integrator for the program, and BAE Systems is producing the advanced EW hardware.
EPAWSS increases the aircrew's situational awareness, helps them understand when they are being targeted by radar, and it provides them with advanced techniques to counter modern integrated air defense systems. This order brings the total value of this EPAWSS contract to Boeing and BAE Systems to $805.5 million.
On this order Boeing and BAE Systems will do the work in Nashua, N.H., and should be finished by November 2025. For more information contact BAE Systems Electronic Systems online at www.baesystems.com/en-us/product/eagle-passive-active-warning-survivability-system-epawss, Boeing Defense, Space & Security at www.boeing.com/company/about-bds, or the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center www.aflcmc.af.mil.
John Keller | Editor
John Keller is editor-in-chief of Military & Aerospace Electronics magazine, which provides extensive coverage and analysis of enabling electronic and optoelectronic technologies in military, space, and commercial aviation applications. A member of the Military & Aerospace Electronics staff since the magazine's founding in 1989, Mr. Keller took over as chief editor in 1995.
