Waco’s L3Harris Technologies plant has finished work on the first of 10 aircraft that scrambles enemy communications during battle, giving the Air Force another weapon in its electromagnetic attack capabilities.
The L3Harris facility adjacent to Texas State Technical College Airport employs about 1,100 people, said spokeswoman Christina Flores.
L3Harris and defense contractor BAE Systems have joined forces to integrate the EC-130H Compass Call mission system into a Gulfstream G550 business jet. The finished product “disrupts enemy communications, radars and navigation systems, and suppresses … the transmission of essential information between adversaries,” said a L3Harris news release.
The EC-37B in flight.
The resulting aircraft, the EC-37B, “has increased speed, endurance and high-altitude operation for improved survivability and range to deliver EA effects,” the company said.
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The EC-37B becomes the successor to the EC-130H, which the Air Force used for decades. The aircraft played a role in supporting Middle East missions, including the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, according to online military-related reporting.
L3Harris will take components from existing EC-130H aircraft being mothballed, upgrade them in conjunction with BAE and transplant the technology into the “highly modified Gulfstream G550 business jet airframes,” according to reporting in The Drive, an online trade journal.
The initial Air Force deal called for L3Harris and New Hampshire-based BAE Systems to produce 10 aircraft sporting these capabilities.
But that total may jump to 14, as The Drive reports that the U.S. House of Representatives voted in June to add $37 billion to the proposed 2023 defense budget, earmarking about $883 million to acquire four more EC-37B Compass Call aircraft from the L3Harris/BAE Systems team.
“The delivery of the first EC-37B Compass Call is a major milestone for our customer’s electromagnetic attack capabilities,” Dave Harrold, vice president and general manager of BAE Systems’ Countermeasure & Electromagnetic Attack unit, said in a news release. “We take pride in delivering this critical EW capability to keep the U.S. at the vanguard for defense and deterrence.”
Said Jason Lambert, president of L3Harris’ Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance unit, “Our team accomplished the incredible challenge of migrating the Compass Call mission equipment from the much larger EC-37B and fully integrating it into the Gulfstream G550 platform.
“As the Air Force sunsets its 40-year-old EC-130H fleet, the cutting-edge EC-37B will empower the customer to continue serving its vital electromagnetic warfare mission for generations to come,” Lambert said.
U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Waco, released a statement congratulating L3Harris and the city of Waco.
“Today is a great day for Waco, Texas, with the delivery of the first EC-37B Compass Call to the U.S. Air Force,” Sessions wrote. “The state-of-the-art aircraft, retrofitted in Waco, will enhance our critical electromagnetic attack capability as part of next-generation defense technology.
“Thank you, L3Harris Technologies for taking on this tremendous effort,” Sessions added in the release. “I’m proud to support this critical project in Congress and look forward to future projects built in Waco and deployed worldwide to support our national defense.”
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