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'Smart' thinking: Smart Cable helps protect aircraft

  • Published
  • By Lanorris Askew
  • 78th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
In December 2003 and January 2004, several Air Force aircraft took fire near Baghdad, but the missile warning systems failed to indicate the attacks.

Air Force officials looked to the Warner Robins Air Logistics Center for a fix.

An airlift defensive systems tiger team was formed to find a solution, said Col. Art Huber, 542nd Electronic Warfare Sustainment Group commander.

The team of program offices from the Air Logistics Center and Aeronautical Systems Center, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, came up with ideas ranging from fixing the old missile warning system to developing a new one. The team ultimately developed the Smart Cable, a device already documented to have saved aircraft from missile attacks.

The 542nd calls the cable an upgrade to the current missile warning system. It has been installed on 400 Coalition aircraft, none of which have been hit by missile attacks.

"There have been documented instances of missile attacks on Coalition aircraft that were unsuccessful and that can be attributed to the effective operation of the Smart Cable," said Colonel Huber. "The Smart Cable was selected by Lt. Gen. (John) Baker (AMC vice commander) as the one idea able to be fielded fastest and with the promise of being the best fix."

By March 2004, the team had started off in earnest to design, test and produce the Smart Cable.

To get the best ideas in one room, a team was formed which consisted of the 542nd EWSG and the aircraft system program offices that were affected, including C-130, C-5, C-17, C-141 and MH-53 helicopter.

Summer 2004 was spent testing the prototype on aircraft and getting ready, along with the 402nd Maintenance Wing, to produce it. The first cable was produced in August 2004.

"Our normal event is to form block cycle updates, which have a two-year time cycle, and to keep an eye on the hardware performance of our systems," said Mr. Larry Sheets, Optical Infrared countermeasure systems supervisor.

Mr. Sheets said the team began with a basic analysis to see why the problem happened and progressed from there.

"Building a piece of equipment in the electronic warfare world is a five-to-seven year process from conception to test of a new line replaceable unit," he said. "We were approached with the question, 'what can you do in 90 days to 12 months and two years plus?' The fact that we were able to build a new piece of hardware and have it in production in five months was a tremendous effort."

"We took some risks doing some things in parallel, but no steps were omitted," Colonel Huber said.

John Dorminey, 330th Tactical Airlift Sustainment Group Avionics Engineering Flight supervisor agreed.

"This is a very nice example of how the (Air Logistics) Center can respond to a real-world problem that's discovered overseas that is affecting how we are able to support the warfighter," he said. "The ESWG quickly built the device to resolve the problem and were very supportive of us in the aircraft groups to give us what we needed to make a decision to put it on the airplanes."

After fielding, there were reports from users that the cable was performing as it should, but in February 2005 reliability issues began to show up. Another team analyzed the situation and discovered several aircraft had power supply problems with the Smart Cable. A fix has been developed and tested, and a field decision for the power supply issue is set to be made in several weeks.