US Navy to Supply Australia with Refurbished Jammers for EA-18Gs

The US Navy (USN) will dip into its own inventory to supply Australia with the ALQ-99 jammer pods it needs for its future Boeing EA-18G fleet. The southwest Pacific nation is converting 12 of its 24 Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornets into the electronic attack Growler configuration.

While the low-band transmitter for the ALQ-99 suite is relatively new and in production, the mid-band jammers are not in production.

"We will be teaming with Cobham, Lansdale, Pennsylvania, to deliver low band transmitters to the RAAF [Royal Australian Air Force]," says the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR). "The remainder of the transmitters and ancillary equipment--radomes, hardbacks, ram air turbines and universal exciters--will be provided as refurbished out of USN/USMC [United States Marine Corps] excess inventory."

The USN says that it expects to transition its forces to the Next Generation Jammer that is currently being developed.

"With the Next Generation Jammer IOC [initial operational capability] scheduled for 2018, we expect that the RAAF, USN and USMC will be using the ALQ-99 pods for one to two years until the USMC retires its ICAP [Improved Capability] III EA-6Bs in 2019," NAVAIR says. That will leave "just the RAAF and the USN as ALQ-99 users until the Next Generation Jammer comes online in adequate numbers for the USN to retire the ALQ-99."