Funding of $50.0M represents a multi-year RDT&E request to provide for EWWS capability in Air National Guard F-15s. Additionally, this request seeks to include specific language in the FY18 NDAA that would encourage funding from the National Guard and Reserves Equipment Account (NGREA) to procure the system in limited quantities.

- Program/Activity Report language requested: Electronic Warning Warfare System ---The Committee directs the Air Force to continue Research, Development, Test and Evaluation on the Electronic Warning Warfare System on Air National Guard F-15 aircraft in order to supplement on-board threat detection, identification, and tracking as part of an integrated function of the existing sensor systems for threat detection and weapons engagement. The committee recognizes the requirement for the combatant commander to have access to lethal air superiority in a contested, degraded environment using multi-spectral search/track/target systems. This requirement is critical for both the homeland defense and overseas contingency mission sets. The Committee directed $50,000,000 in fiscal year 2018, and encourages the Air Force to create a funding profile from fiscal years 2018 through 2021 in order to fully equip Air National Guard F-15 aircraft with EWWS, given the strategic importance of the program.

- Brief explanation of and rationale for the funding or language: Adversary aircraft and integrated air defense networks employ sophisticated detection and electronic attack (EA) methods that complicate F-15C/D employment and leave the F-15 vulnerable to attack. Multi-spectral search/track/target systems and enhanced Electronic Warfare Warning Set (EWWS) systems provide a critical capability that must be procured and fully integrated with F-15 current and planned systems for seamless on-board threat detection, identification, and tracking of threat systems while permitting effective weapons cueing. EWWS and related capabilities are not employed in lieu of active electronically scanned array radars or as stand-alone functions. They are a family of systems producing integrated fire-control that dramatically increases the probability of threat detection when EA and advanced digital radio frequency and infrared counter-measures are used. Additionally, any multi-spectral system must be coordinated with threat warning to provide robust threat alerts to friendly aircraft, which will require developmental funding for proper testing and integration. Therefore, capabilities such as EWWS should be procured in the near term for immediate integration while multi-spectral systems that enable integrated 4th and 5th generation fighter operations, theater missile detection, and asymmetric threat defense are developed.