The AWACS Story William A Skillman Westinghouse Retiree

The AWACS Story William A. Skillman Westinghouse Retiree April 24, 2013

The Need for AWACS 1962 – Air Force AEW Pulse Radar (EC-121 Warning Star) blind to low-flying targets Pulse Doppler developing technology offered look-down capability: Westinghouse: BOMARC, F-4 J (F-4 A/C) Single Target radars, APQ-81 -Track-While-Scan (U. S. Navy) Hughes: F-15 General Electric/Northrop Grumman: E-2, Hawkeye, carrier AEW 1963 USAF TAC & ADC issued SOR-206 “Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS)”

Response to SOR 206 AIRFRAME Proposals: Boeing, Douglas, Lockheed RADAR Proposals: Westinghouse, Hughes, Raytheon, GE, 3 others AIR FORCE: SAB determined proof of concept needed, ASD formulated Overland Technology Program(ORT) DOD funded ORT program – 1964

ORT Aircraft – EC 121 -1966 Three Aircraft with scaled radars: Westinghouse–High PRF (Pulse Repetition Frequency) Hughes – Medium PRF Raytheon – Low PRF Radar Antenna mounted in lower radome

ORT Antenna in EC-121 Radome Low sidelobe slotted waveguide array

Results of ORT Flight Tests 1968 Raytheon and GE dropped 1968 -70 AWACS Support Program to develop critical radar technologies 1970 Boeing selected as “prime” contractor 1970 Radar Fly-off initiated: WECO and Hughes design & build Brassboard radars

Brassboard Fly-off Dec. 1971 - Radars delivered to Boeing - Seattle 1972 - Radars installed in 2 Boeing 707 s Mar. -Sep. 1972 Radar Test Flights Westinghouse: 49 flights, 300 hours Oct. 1972 Flight test results and DDT& E proposals resulted in Westinghouse win

Westinghouse Brassboard Radar

AWACS Brassboard Antenna Slotted Waveguide Planar Array Low Sidelobes to minimize ground clutter Electronic Steering in Elevation for height finding

Brassboard Aircraft

The Road to Production Post-Win: Airborne Tracking Demo - 6 flights VIP flights Andrews AFB Jan. 1973 Full Scale Production Authorized 1974 Jamming Vulnerability “Adequate” 1975 Production Radar Flight test begun Oct. 1976 1 st Prod. Radar delivered to Boeing Mar. 1977 1 st E-3 A, Sentry, delivered to A. F. May 1978 Initial Operational Capability - 6 A/C

1980 Icelandic Odyssey! Balto. > Tinker > Keflavik> England + Reverse Purpose: observe performance of improvement

Who has 707 AWACS? U. S. A. F. AN/APY-1 Active: …. . . . . 31 Scrap (TS-3 – BB A/C). . . . . 1 Crashes (Nellis & Elmendorf AFB). . 2 NATO AN/APY-2 Active: …. . . . . 17 Crash (Greece) …. . . . 1 U. K. …. . . 7 France …. . . 4 Saudi Arabia …. . . . . 5 TOTAL. . . . . 68

Recent AWACS Variants Boeing 707 out of production Boeing 767 Japan 4 Phased Array – Wedgetail -Boeing 737 Australia 6 Turkey 4 South Korea 4

AWACS Deployments Saudi Arabia – Yemen Desert Storm - Iraq Allied Force - Kosovo Enduring Freedom - Afganistan Iraqi Freedom Odyssey Dawn/Unified Protector - Libya Noble Eagle – Homeland defense Humanitarian Relief – Hurricanes Rita & Katrina

Non-US AWACS Radars These countries are the only exporters, besides the U. S. , of an AWACS type radar. Russia IL-76 or A 50 or Mainstay Sweden – SAAB, Ericsson, Erieye China – KJ-2000 (mod IL-76) Israel – Israeli Aircraft Industries – Phalcon Numerous radar/aircraft combinations are being supplied to other countries.

References Much of the material was drawn from: “Development of the Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) Radar” by Wm. A. Skillman and Robert E. Cowdery, recipients of the IEEE AESS 1995 Pioneer Award for the development of AWACS. Published in the IEEE Trans. on Aerospace and Electronic Systems, Vol 31, No. 4, Oct. 1995. For a later version with color pictures, as well as this slide show, see the author's website at “http: //Skillmansof. America. com” Link to my home page top right Here you can also find two eye-witness accounts of the Hindenburg disaster of 1937 and a slide show “Remembering the Hindenburg” by the author.