Page 46 - Williams Foundation Future of Electronic Warfare Seminar

A New Approach and Attitude to Electronic Warfare in Australia

“In fact, later this year we are holding our first two day working sessions between the P-8 and Wedgetail
communities which will be a foundation towards working towards that goal.

“When one looks towards the prospects of high tempo and high intensity operations, we will need well
developed interoperability and that requires the new platforms, TTPs and software development all working
hand in hand before we are in combat.

"Otherwise, we are at significant risk.
“If we can already have the same base line for how our ones and zeros communicate, that's half the battle to
get there.

"Then we can just develop and evolve from that.

"I think it's going to be increasingly important.

"It's fundamental to how we're going to go forward because what is clear to me from recent involvement in
Talisman Sabre 17, is that if we're not doing joint/combined, if we're thinking component or thinking single-
nation type approach, we are vulnerable and we're not going to succeed.”

Question: The SPO is next door to your hangar.

Could you talk about the working process between the code rewriters and the operators?

Group Captain Stuart Bellingham: “It's a tight team.

"We have a budget within which we have funded builds of software but we have a great flexibility within
each build to provide the operators with their most urgent requirements.

“We have just incorporated what we term our in-service build or ISB, 5.0 onto our Aircraft, which is a new
software build.

"We're already working on the next software build. It's not something that we do in a reactive sense.

“These are all proactive / predictive options that we have in place and that we will utilize to continue to
enhance the capability of the aircraft. They're roughly at about 18-month apart for the block upgrades.

“Most of the great changes come from not just the engineers but from the guys who are actually operating the
radar in combat.

“It's really challenging, not just for the engineers and the operators here in the wing as we try to harmonize
and make sure that the programs are working but it's also a challenge for the people out flying the airplane
because they need to keep current with the software builds.”

“We forecast forward and we request budget allocation to support these upgrades.”

Editor’s Note: A key element in shaping the way ahead is leveraging the software upgrade radar and
related systems on an aircraft like Wedgetail and working it interactively with other software
upgradeable systems aboard ships, notably the evolving radar capabilities.

One such capability is being developed, built and modernized by CEA and to its contribution we now
turn.

Second Line of Defense

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