EA-6B Prowler: The Digital Warfare Plane That By no means Ceased To Impress

The story of the Prowler begins with its worth as an digital assault plane. The airplane was launched early on in the midst of the Vietnam Warfare, and ultimately turned the U.S. navy’s “foremost digital assault platform,” in line with the U.S. Nationwide Naval Aviation Museum.

This plane served as the primary purpose-built digital warfare system within the arsenal of the U.S. navy. Fairly than coming as a reconfiguration of current know-how that might present a stopgap, the Prowler was intricately constructed to carry out this job with precision and ease. A Prowler in lively service would have been armed with as much as 4 AGM-88 HARM missiles and as many as 5 ALQ-99F jamming pods, supported by over 30 particular person detection antennae. HARM missiles are anti-radiation weapons that explode over enemy radar techniques and devastate the power to scramble an efficient protection. As for purely digital weaponry, the jamming pods are used to establish enemy communications gear, radar techniques, and different vessels. The Prowler’s crew would then make the most of the gear to knock out detection capabilities, communication channels, and steering techniques to render enemy combatants unable to maintain tempo with American operations within the air and elsewhere.

More moderen enhancements embody a revamp of the cockpit’s informational readout, enhanced enemy jamming capabilities, and a boosted risk detection platform for even better enemy identification talents. The Prowler system is run on two Pratt & Whitney J52-P-408 turbojets, permitting the plane to achieve a most velocity of 610 miles per hour over a 2,400-mile vary, and a 38,000-foot altitude ceiling.