USAF Building New Site for Testing B-2 Flight Component RCS and Antenna Calibration
By September next year, the U.S. Air Force is to establish a new Composite Aircraft Antenna Calibration Facility (CAACF) at Hill AFB, Utah for testing flight components’ radar cross section (RCS) and antenna calibration of the Northrop Grumman B-2 bomber.
The 309th Maintenance Support Group at Ogden Air Logistics Complex is adapting the Resonant Adaptive Zonal Radar (RAZR) to test B-2 RCS at Ogden, while the Air Force builds CAACF.
Resonant Sciences, a small business in Beavercreek, Ohio outside Dayton, builds RAZR–a robotic monitor that depot and field mechanics use after a B-2 mission to inspect the aircraft’s composite material to pinpoint areas that need repair.
RAZR has been among B-2 program efforts that have saved 15,000 maintenance man hours per year, Scott Carlson, Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s deputy system program officer for the B-2, said in July.
In the last two years, the Air Force has funded seven RAZRs.
“The CAACF will be a dual use facility for RCS testing of B-2 flight control components and for calibrating composite aircraft antennas,” according to a Wednesday business notice. “Hill AFB procured the RAZR to be used with the B-2 composite flight control surfaces RCS testing. This SOW [statement of work] pertains to the new RCS system to be used for the B-2 RCS testing.”
The B-2 program has said that it wants to reduce low-observable (LO) maintenance costs and time, which reduced the stealth bomber’s mission capable rate to 56 percent last year (Defense Daily, Aug. 2). The LO effort comes under the B-2’s Low Observable Signature and Supportable Modifications (LOSSM) relatively scant funding line. In fiscal 2025, the Air Force requested $1 million for LOSSM, which the service said “supports the B-2 ability to penetrate anti-access combat environments, performing missions directed by the National Command Authority while ensuring aircrew survivability.”
A version of this story originally appeared in affiliate publication Defense Daily.
The post USAF Building New Site for Testing B-2 Flight Component RCS and Antenna Calibration appeared first on Avionics International.
—————
Boost Internet Speed–
Free Business Hosting–
Free Email Account–
Dropcatch–
Free Secure Email–
Secure Email–
Cheap VOIP Calls–
Free Hosting–
Boost Inflight Wifi–
Premium Domains–
Free Domains