BARKSDALE AIR FORCE BASE: The B-52 Stratofortress is determined to receive an upgrade that may significantly increase its weapons payload, officials said.
The initial 1760 Internal Weapons Bay Upgrade will allow the B-52 to accommodate as much as eight advanced precision-guided Joint Direct Attack Munitions in its internal weapons bay, besides the 12 it could possibly currently stick with it exterior weapons pylons.
“It increases the B-52′s overall carrying capacity by 67 percent,” said Alan Williams, the B-52 Deputy Program element monitor at Air Force Global Strike Command.
The 1760 IWBU is predicated on rewiring the prevailing B-52 launcher right into a Common Rotary Launcher, which carries the munitions and is housed inside the B-52′s bomb bay. The rewiring allows the B-52 to speak with the latest weapons within the Air Force’s arsenal.
“Military Standard 1760 is the technical name,” Williams said. “It determines how the wiring would be laid out and what signals will battle through them. It’s identical to your home’s internet connection; you wish a particular form of wiring to access the signal and a software agreement as to what those signals can be. Without that correct kind of wiring and the software agreement, your computer can’t refer to the net.”
While the B-52 has long been ready to carry JDAMs and other cutting-edge weapons from that family, on an exterior pylon under each wing, the internal weapons bay was not equipped to speak with those forms of munitions.
“The system uses a digital interface,” Williams said. “Then there’s a software piece called a storage management overlay, or SMO. We currently have the SMO which can seek advice from the weapons at the wing. With the hot wiring in place, we’re now going with a purpose to change the software to also allow for communication with those weapons within the bomb bay.”
The addition, the wiring within the internal weapons bay also lays the groundwork for future expansion to other advanced weapons.
“By having 1760 inside the bay, it allows us to upgrade the aircraft,” Williams said. “As new J-Series weapons come onboard, all we need to do is rewrite the software and add those weapons to the aircraft inventory. As an instance, increment 1.2 will add the JASSM-Extended Range missile and the MALD-J missile into the complement within the bay,” Williams said, adding that these missiles will bring greater mission flexibility to the B-52.
A contract for Engineering and Manufacturing Development have been awarded to Boeing to develop and convey six of those upgrades by April 2016. After those has been installed and tested, a brand new contract might be awarded for procurement of one other 38 units.
All 1760 IWBUs must be online by October 2017, Williams said. With them, each B-52 will bring way more firepower to the fight.
“Now in place of three aircraft carrying 36 weapons, we will be able to have two aircraft carrying 40 weapons,” Williams said. “That lowers your variety of crews for a mission, and lowers your fuel requirement, or it can provide the choice a good way to put more weapons heading in the right direction with an analogous selection of aircraft. It’ll make us more efficient and more attentive to the warfighter.”
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