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| United States Navy Boeing E/A-18G Growler |
It looks like an F-18 and it smells like an F-18 and it has 90% of its parts in common with the F-18, but if you look under the skin you'll find a different kind of animal - an electronical beasty, so to speak.
I'm looking at this picture and I got to thinking that it has a bunch of stuff hanging underneath. It took some digging, but I think I figured out what they all are. We'll start at the center and work out to the end of left wing. We'll pretend the right wing is outfitted the same.
Under the centerline of the fuselage we have an AN/ALQ-99 jammer pod. Next, just outboard of the jet engine intake, the bomb shaped item is an external fuel tank. Next is another AN/ALQ-99. The knob sticking out of the front of the pod is actually a propeller, which implies that it is driving a generator, so it's generating its own power instead of drawing power from the aircraft. Next is an AGM-88 HARM (High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile). An anti-radiation missile (ARM) is a missile designed to detect and home in on an enemy radio emission source. Lastly, on the wingtip, is an AN/ALQ-218 wide band receiver.
One of the biggest hurdles in creating an electronic warfare plane using an existing aircraft as a platform, is the electrical demand of the gadgets. The result is usually either that some systems cannot be used simultaneously, or the engines have to be highly modified to increase available power, or both. Adding an APU, even though it creates additional drag, is used so that the Growler version may use the conventional, or only slightly modified, version of the engine. Cheaper and easier to maintain.
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