Key Points – The US Air Force’s B-52J Radar Modernization Program (RMP), crucial for keeping the bomber viable into the 2050s, has triggered a “significant” Nunn-McCurdy cost breach, with costs rising approximately 17%.
-This requires formal congressional notification. The program aims to replace the B-52’s obsolete AN/APQ-166 radar with Raytheon’s new AN/APQ-188, an advanced AESA system derived from F-15EX/F/A-18E/F technology, offering enhanced ground mapping, target tracking, and potential electronic warfare capabilities.
-Despite Raytheon’s experience, integrating this modern digital radar into the aging analog B-52 airframe is proving complex and costly, though officials aim to avoid a “critical” breach that could force cancellation.
The B-52J Upgrade: Will the Cost Come In “Under the Radar”
A radar upgrade is one of the major technological improvements that transforms the B-52H into the B-52J configuration. But it is also the part of the B-52J’s new configuration that some worry could sink the program.
Increasing costs for the B-52 Radar Modernization Program (RMP) are so significant that they have hit the US Congressional tripwire that requires the US Air Force (USAF) to inform the relevant committees. This has caused the USAF to look at options for reducing the dimensions of the B-52J upgrades.
The specific legislation involved is the Nunn-McCurdy Act, which mandates that the individual service branches will inform Congress when a program cost increase or schedule estimate has risen substantially from a previously-approved baseline.
The legislation defines a “critical” breach of cost or schedule as any change of 25 per cent or higher. Any project crossing that subsequent threshold then requires the Defense Department (DoD) to certify the program as necessary for national security, or it must be cancelled.
The Radar Program
The USAF had previously designated cost increases for the B-52J radar as “significant,” which means that there is a deviation from the original baseline of 15 per cent or greater.
USAF and US defense industry sources have estimated that the real increase might be more along the lines of 17 per cent, which still puts it below the 25 per cent increase reported and DoD certification requirement. “Under the radar – literally and symbolically -you might say,” said a former and now-retired Raytheon spokesperson.
However, according to the service on 11 April, “the Air Force Program Executive Officer for Bombers submitted a program deviation report to the Air Force Service Acquisition Executive” concerning the radar modernization program, according to an Air Force spokesperson. “The Air Force is assessing the cost and schedule growth on the program and initial review of the PDR indicates it will be a significant cost breach.”
Raytheon is the contractor developing and installing the new radar, but as a subcontractor to Boeing, the chief integrator for the B-52J upgrade.
Raytheon is also a traditional radar supplier for large, long-range USAF bomber platforms, having designed the B-2 bomber’s AN/APQ-181 radar set and was awarded a contract to upgrade that aircraft’s array in 2023.
The US defense giant has, in the words of the same former Raytheon spokesperson, “more than two decades of experience in up-sizing or down-sizing the radar system for major platforms. This comes from the many design concepts that have made Raytheon’s radar systems ‘modular’ in nature. These are designs that can be built onto or components swapped out for more capable replacements as the technology matures.”
The Raytheon Design
The RMP calls for replacing the B-52’s by now-obsolete and unreliable analogue-based AN/APQ-166 radar with a new-age design.
This radar, the AN/APQ-188, is described as a “hybrid of the active electronically-scanned array (AESA) radars used by the Boeing F-15EX (AN/APG-82) and F/A-18E/F (AN/APG-79), both of which are configured for air-to-ground mission.”
AESA’s are capable of providing ground-mapping functions, as well as managing a large number of aerial threats at longer ranges. Fighter pilots flying with this kind of radar have been known to say quietly (as well as anonymously) “don’t tell my command chain I said this, but with this radar, I really do not need an AWACS ‘holding my hand’ anymore when I am out there looking for targets.”
AESAs in recent years have additionally been re-purposed for electronic warfare and communications. “This is not just a radar antenna anymore,” said the same retired Raytheon spokesman. “With the AESA technology – and particularly now in the Gallium Nitride (GaN)-generation it becomes a multifunctional array.”
The radar is a critical module of the entire B-52J update, which will involve not only a new radar, but also new engines and engine pylons, digital engine controls, a communications suite and other modifications to the long-standing bombe. This will extend the B-52’s service life into the 2050s. The radar itself is planned for Initial Operational Capability in 2027.
In 1980, the late and famous Arizona Senator and one-time presidential candidate Barry Goldwater was a major advocate for the B-1 bomber, commenting that the B-52s were so old that “I think some of them fought with Custer.”
Imagine what he might have said today at the news that this aircraft will be in service for another 25 years.
About the Author:
Reuben F. Johnson is a survivor of the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and is an Expert on Foreign Military Affairs with the Fundacja im. Kazimierza Pułaskiego in Warsaw. He has been a consultant to the Pentagon, several NATO governments and the Australian government in the fields of defense technology and weapon systems design. Over the past 30 years he has resided in and reported from Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Brazil, the People’s Republic of China and Australia.
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