Awacs: The Nerve Centers Of Gulf War -- Boeing-Build Radar Planes Come Through Under Fire
As three Iraqi fighters roared into the sky Thursday from an air base somewhere in Iraq, three red blips doubtless appeared on the radar scope of a U.S. spy plane several miles above Saudi Arabia.
The three blips set off a flurry of activity among crew members of the lumbering but highly sophisticated U.S. aircraft, an Airborne Warning and Control System, or AWACS, plane built by Boeing Aerospace & Electronics.
It was announced later in the day that a Saudi fighter pilot had downed two of the three Iraqi jets. Few details were released, but military specialists say the following events probably took place.
The computers of the AWACS plane recognized the blips instantly as incoming Iraqi fighters. Their air speed, altitude and precise location appeared on the scope, and a crew member radioed a warning to nearby friendly aircraft - in this case, four Saudi
F-15s on a routine patrol.
Just moments after the AWACS spotted the Iraqi planes, the Saudi pilot was flying on their tails.
``I just rolled in behind them and shot them down,'' the F-15 pilot, identified as Capt. Ayedh, said later. This caused two of the red blips to vanish from the AWACS radar scope. The third blip changed direction as the remaining enemy fighter retreated into Iraq.
Thursday's encounter underscores the military value of the AWACS in the Persian Gulf war.
The huge, ungainly looking aircraft can organize a lethal reception for intruders, as it did Thursday, or it can choreograph thousands of allied bombing sorties at once.
Packed with high-speed computers and an elaborate radar system, AWACS planes have become the flying nerve centers of the war. They can identify and interpret data on as many as 240 planes over a 58,000-square-mile area - about the size of Michigan - and relay tactical information on all of them to allied pilots, warships, ground launchers and even back to the Pentagon.
Although the AWACS has operated since 1977, it looks like something from the future, and it performs accordingly. Take a converted Boeing 707 passenger jet and hoist a saucer from the Starship Enterprise on its back, and you have the AWACS.
AWACS planes don't come cheap. At about $180 million each, they are the among the most expensive airplane ever deployed. The U.S. military owns at least 34 of them. The Saudi government has purchased five of the special planes, along with Boeing KC-135 tankers to refuel them, and has been dickering to get more. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization also has a fleet of the surveillance planes, and Britain and France soon will have fleets of them.
Their capabilities, though impressive, are far from foolproof. During tests, their radars and computers have been known to identify fast-moving cars on the German autobahn as aircraft.
When an Iraqi jet launched two Exocet missiles in May 1987 and killed 37 sailors aboard the USS Stark, the nearby AWACS failed to detect the missiles as they headed toward the ship.
Still, AWACS planes have been credited with successfully coordinating the actions of hundreds of planes from seven countries in the intensive bombing campaign of the Gulf war.
During the first 24 hours of the war, 1,700 allied warplanes of 24 types flew missions into Iraq and Kuwait.
``This makes O'Hare (International Airport in Chicago) look like nothing,'' said Rep. Dave McCurdy, D-Okla., a member of the House Armed Services Committee and an Air Force reservist.
In all this action, only three warplanes were lost and four more damaged, hardly more than one might expect from an intensive peacetime exercise.
``What is amazing to me is that there were not more mishaps,'' McCurdy said. ``I would have expected more casualties just because of the crowded sky.''
The AWACS plane's wizardry lies in its radar system and IBM CC-2 computer, which instantaneously provide the precise location and partial identification of any aircraft in its range. Just to run the electronics, the power supplies on the plane generate enough electricity to light a city of 100,000.
The radar antennas are contained within the 30-foot-wide saucer, or radome, that sits atop the plane and rotates once every 10 seconds.
The radar was designed to detect fighters about 230 miles away and larger objects, such as bombers, about 345 miles away.
It can operate in several modes simultaneously. For example, waves and the rippling motion of water can create noise or clutter for radars designed to track objects in the air. But a special maritime mode changes the radar's electronic characteristics to reduce such clutter and allow the plane to detect surface ships.
Iraqis can attempt to jam the radar by reproducing its signals and beaming them back slightly altered, to make planes appear to be where they are not. To counter this, one mode allows part of the radar to simply ``listen.'' If the system receives a radar ``echo'' of a signal that was never sent, operators know they are being jammed and can try to compensate for the electronic trickery.
To help make sense of all the incoming data, planes and other airborne objects are displayed on 15 color television sets monitored by a crew of 16 to 19 on-board specialists.
These analysts can detect enemy aircraft immediately after takeoff, and can direct allied planes, either orally or by electronic means, to respond.
They can also link electronically with a satellite and beam the monitor displays and radio communications all the way back to Washington, allowing Pentagon officials to assess the situation.
The plane cruises at an altitude of about 5 1/2 miles at a top speed of 530 miles an hour. It can stay in the air about 11 hours, or longer if refueled in the air. Because of its size - 153 feet long and 146 feet from wing tip to wing tip - and its relatively low speed, it is a sitting duck for enemy fighters. So it always stays far from the front and often is escorted by fighter jets.
AWACS is scheduled to undergo a computer upgrade to enhance its identifying capabilities, but the $400 million improvements won't start showing up on AWACS until 1994.
Still, in its present condition it is considered far more advanced than the Iraqis' radar plane, the Adnan-2.
AWACS ``is the king'' of surveillance aircraft, said William Graveline, senior evaluator of Air Force systems for the congressional General Accounting Office.