Talking Stealth: USAF Pushes for 5th to 4th 'Gateway'
Posted by Amy Butler 12:15 PM on May 09, 2013
USAF officials are preparing by year’s end to begin flight testing of a communications gateway technology designed to solve the vexing problem of allowing stealthy aircraft to communicate with legacy fighters, though they operate using different protocols.
The goal is to “network” combat air forces so that pilots of the F-22 — and in the future the F-35 — can share data with those flying legacy aircraft such as the F-15 and F-16 aircraft, says Lt. Col. Scott Hamilton, chief of the tactical datalinks program branch at the service’s Air Combat Command (ACC).
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The 5th to 4th operational concept calls for the gateway to be hosted on a separate platform that can maintain line-of-sight with needed receivers. This means the host aircraft must be able to fly high enough — such as the Global Hawk unmanned aircraft — to connect with forces behind enemy lines. Or, the host could possess enough stealth to operate behind enemy lines. One ACC slide depicting the concept shows a Global Hawk as a host, but the Air Force is pushing hard to terminate the program and mothball the aircraft it has purchased. Hamilton says the Air Force has not yet made a final decision on what the host aircraft will be.
Because the gateway aircraft will host all of the 5th to 4th components, engineers do not envision having to add equipment onto fighter aircraft. This was a primary goal , as adding any antennas onto the F-22 or F-35 without compromising their radar evading qualities could prove troublesome and costly.
Hamilton says that developing the antenna system for the gateway and avoiding electromagnetic inference within the system could prove to be the most challenging piece of the JETpack project.