The U.S. Air Force may want to buy an additional 12 EC-37B Compass Call aircraft by BAE Systems and L3Harris Technologies [LHX] to counter threats in the Indo-Pacific.
Congressional lawmakers are asking the Air Force whether it could field the aircraft by 2027.
The service is planning to field 10 EC-37Bs to replace the EC-130H, which uses electronic attack and counter-information to disrupt adversary communications and navigation and to suppress air defenses. The Air Force accepted the first EC-130H in 1982 and has 14 of them.
Last month, BAE Systems and L3Harris said that they had delivered the first EC-37B to the Air Force (Defense Daily, Sept. 12).
The EC-37B is based on General Dynamics’ [GD] Gulfstream G550 business jet. The companies have said that the G550 is faster, can stay aloft longer and operate at higher altitudes to give it “improved survivability and range.”
The G550 is out of production so that, if the Air Force wishes to add to its current plan of 10 EC-37Bs, the service may have to buy used G550s from corporate executives.
BAE builds the EC-37B mission system at the company’s electronic systems unit in Nashua, N.H., and L3Harris integrates the system into the G550 at its aircraft missionization center in Waco, Texas.
BAE and L3Harris are also the prime contractors on the EC-130H–a heavily modified Lockheed Martin [LMT] C-130 Hercules.
Current and future Compass Calls are to receive BAE Systems’ Small Adaptive Bank of Electronic Resources (SABER) open architecture. SABER includes third-party software applications to permit rapid mission upgrades without having to remove the aircraft from the field to install new hardware.
The EC-37B is one example of aircraft that L3Harris is converting from a business jet to military use, as industry looks to harness business jet advances in size, range, and power to move military missions to the smaller aircraft.
Jon Rambeau, the president of L3Harris’ Integrated Mission Systems segment and the former vice president and general manager of Integrated Warfare Systems & Sensors at Lockheed Martin’s Rotary and Mission Systems segment, said in an Oct. 27 interview that L3 and now L3Harris have invested about $100 million in the last five to seven years in adapting business jets for military use.
“It’s not a simple thing to transition these capabilities and keep the aircraft air worthy,” he said. “We put a lot of investment into the shapes/the outer mold line of the aircraft, how you would modify the aircraft, keep it air worthy–aerodynamic balance, and package these mission capabilities.”
In May last year, L3Harris said that a company-built Airborne Reconnaissance and Electronic Warfare System (ARES) aircraft, based on the Bombardier Global 6500 business jet, was providing Army signals intelligence missions to support U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (Defense Daily, Oct. 10).
In addition, L3Harris plans to offer the Global 6500 equipped with an air moving target indication radar by Israel Aerospace Industries‘ ELTA Systems Ltd. in an upcoming Korean airborne early warning competition. Korea, which has four Boeing [BA] E-7 Wedgetails, had considered buying an additional four E-7s, but is now in the market for alternatives.
L3Harris is also looking into opportunities to missionize the Dassault Aviation Falcon business jet for Korean maritime patrol needs and for Finland to provide ground moving target indication and full motion video for the Finnish border guard.