PENTAGON SELECTS MADL AS DATALINK FOR STEALTH JETS

Inside the Air Force - 10/31/2008 - Adjust Text Size +
Replacing TTNT on fifth-gen fighters
IN DRAMATIC SHIFT, PENTAGON SELECTS MADL AS DATALINK FOR STEALTH JETS

In a major change of course, the Pentagon has decided to equip all
stealth aircraft with Northrop Grumman’s Multifunction Advanced Data
Link instead of Rockwell Collins’ Tactical Targeting Network
Technology as the primary tool for passing targeting data while flying
strike missions in high-threat environments, according to numerous
sources. This comes after years of claims by the service that it would
install the Rockwell’s TTNT datalink onto both the F-22A Raptor and
the F-35 Lightning II. In late 2006, Lt. Gen. Michael Peterson -- the
Air Force’s chief information officer and warfighting integration
commander -- said that the Pentagon planned to make TTNT one of the
prime datalinks for F-22As and F-35s. But in the past few months, the
Joint Requirements Oversight Council has “approved MADL as the way
forward for the F-22, the B-2 and the F-35,” according to an Air Force
official with knowledge of the decision. However, funding decisions
have not occurred yet. In addition to the JROC, Pentagon acquisition
executive John Young has also made the determination that MADL will be
the datalink for all low-observable aircraft, Col. Jim Firth, deputy
director of requirements at Air Combat Command, told ITAF during an
Oct. 29 interview at ACC headquarters. Putting MADL on the B-2 bomber,
F-35 and the F-22 will allow all the stealth platforms to communicate
on the same waveform under the Advanced Tactical Data Link concept,
the source noted. This makes sense given the thousands of F-35s which
will be purchased for the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, according
to the source. “So just due to their sheer numbers it makes sense to
make the other ones the same if we’re going to do some kind of anti-
access capability where you need [a] low probability of intercept sort
of waveform and you want them all to be on the same sheet of music,”
the source said. However, an industry source claims that the TTNT
datalink is not a survivable enough waveform in high-threat, anti-
access environments. “We’ve done a lot of work over the last couple of
years to look at the pros and cons of those different alternatives,”
Firth said. This year the Air Force is planning to test MADL against
the Link-16 datalink in a high-threat, anti-access environment during
the annual series of networking experiments known as Joint
Expeditionary Force Experiment, according to Col. Stephen Moulton,
director of the Modernization and Innovation Directorate at the Air
Force’s Global Cyberspace Innovation Center. The service put TTNT and
Link-16 through their paces at last year’s JEFX events. Moulton did
not discuss the results of those tests. The F-22A currently uses a
datalink known as the Intra-Flight Datalink, which allows Raptors to
digitally pass information between each other. But this system cannot
pass information to other aircraft without the use of additional
ground- and aircraft-based gateways, which serve as translators.
“That’s unique to the F-22, and there are some limitations to it,”
Firth said. This past summer, Air Force officials worked with the Air
Staff and Office of the Secretary of Defense to “try to figure out
which made the most sense in the anti-access environment,” Firth said.
Calls to TTNT-maker Rockwell Collins were not returned at press time
(Oct. 30).