The Electronic Systems Center at Hanscom AFB, Mass., has just completed an upgrade on the French Airborne Warning and Control System fleet, delivering the fourth and last E-3F AWACS this month. The Radar System Improvement Program package improves the E-3’s surveillance capability by increasing the sensitivity of the Doppler radar, allowing the aircraft to detect and track small targets. The RSIP upgrade also improves the radar’s electronic counter-countermeasures capability, and improves the radar’s antenna, receivers and transmitters. ESC’s Brian Schultz said that the center has been working on providing the same capability for some other international AWACS fleets.
The Air Force will have an estimate of what it would cost to upgrade 33 Block 20 training F-22s to operational configuration by mid-September, and it will likely be “a tremendous number,” Brig. Gen. Dale White, program executive officer for fighters and advanced aircraft, told reporters at an industry conference.…