Electronic Warfare: Need to Strengthen Controls Over Air Force Jammer Program

This report examines the performance effectiveness of radar jammers recently acquired or being acquired by the Air Force for protection of its tactical aircraft. The Air Force procured its entire program quantity of the ALQ-131 Block II and receiverprocessor without completing operational testing. As a result, the system is now being flown in Europe on the F-16 and other aircraft with the receiverprocessor inoperative because of a lack of software. The jammer also has other performance deficiencies that must be resolved before the jammer can be fully effective. Similarly, the Air Force started production of the ALQ-184 before operational testing and subsequently continued production despite unfavorable test results. When deployed to tactical forces, none were ready for use. Finally, the Air Force started production of the ALQ-135 preplanned product improvement before completing its operational testing. All ALQ-135 preplanned product improvement jammers produced so far are in storage because of software design problems. GAO recommends that the Secretary of Defense 1 prohibit the Air Force from awarding further contracts for production of jammers until operational testing provides reasonable assurance that they will meet established performance requirements and 2 require that the ASD C3I establish adequate internal controls over Air Force jammer programs to assure that systems are satisfactorily tested and demonstrate acceptable performance before producing and deploying them.