The AWACS Story

William A. Skillman

Westinghouse Retiree

April 24, 2013

The Need for AWACS1962 – 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-4J (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)”

AEW = Airborne Early Warning

SOR = Specific Operational Requirement

Response to SOR 206AIRFRAME 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

SAB=Air Force Scientific Advisory Board

ASD=AF Aeronautical Systems Division (Wright-Pat)

DOD=Department of Defense

ORT Aircraft – EC121-1966 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 707s

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 1st Prod. Radar delivered to Boeing

Mar. 1977 1st E-3A, 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 A50 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.

ReferencesMuch 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://SkillmansofAmerica.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.