New US Air Force E-3G Radar Aircraft Computers Find Vulnerabilities

For radar reconnaissance of the Air Force of various countries use radar aircraft. In the USA, the Boeing E-3 “Sentry” was operated for a long time, this is an early-warning radar aircraft. For the first time this aircraft flew on mission in October 1975 and is still in use. In particular, this model is in service with the Air Force of such countries as the USA, Great Britain, Saudi Arabia and France. E-3s work, judging by the duration of their service life, not bad, but they lack modern computer control systems.

The United States Air Force recently decided to upgrade the airborne systems of its radar aircraft and launched E-3G Block 40/45. After that, the upgrade of radar aircraft began with the installation of modern electronics. In some of the flying radars of the USAF, computer systems with an open architecture are already installed, they can be updated right during the flight. The Americans managed to modernize nine such aircraft, but then the work was suspended. The reason is simple: it turned out that modern computers designed for radar aircraft are subject to hacking. As a result, there are 18 cars left with old onboard systems, which so far have been decided not to upgrade.

E-3G Block 40/45 has come to replace older PCs. The basis of the novelty is a managing server with an operating system based on Red Hat Linux. As a new software for workstations, the military decided to use Windows. Microsoft's OS has equipped all the workstations in a flying radar installation. The equipment is networked; 15 crew members can work with on-board systems simultaneously. After the new hardware platform was ready, the military said that the main advantage of the onboard system of this type is the open architecture, which expands the capabilities of the aircraft’s software and hardware complex.
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Aircraft with block E-3G Block 40/45 received a new series - E-3G. The computers of such airplanes can track various objects in the air, at sea and in land. The resulting information is processed in real time and displayed on the touch screen. According to the military, this reduces the response time to the appearance of important targets and reduces the likelihood of error.

Technical characteristics of the aircraft radar

• Crew: 4 crew members and 13-19 people in the task force.
• Length: 46.61 m
• Wing Span: 44.42 m
• Height: 12.73 m
• Wing area: 283.35 m²
• Weight empty: 78 000 kg
• Weight curb: 147,420 kg
• Maximum takeoff weight: 160,822 kg
• Fuel capacity: 90 800 l
• Engines: 4 × TRD Pratt-Whitney TF33-P-100 / 100A
• Thrust: 4 × 93.41 kN
• Target detection up to 400 km (review period 10 s)
• Cruising speed: 750 km / h

In addition to the local network, the new military computers are connected to the satellite network. This allowed the remote control of some systems of the flying radar and at the same time reduce the number of crew members on board. Among other advantages of the update was the reduction of the delay in the transmission of data on priority ground targets.


Airplane radar E-3 over Nevada, 2012. Source: USAF.

The update program was not cheap . The military spent more than $ 2.6 billion on it by 2016. The duration of the project, including the development of new systems, their production and installation was 10 years. Moreover, in 2012, analysts who conducted an assessment of the project, announced a number of identified deficiencies, which, however, it was decided to consider insignificant.

Modernized flying radar installations have already managed to show themselves. In particular, two aircraft took part in some operations in the Caribbean aimed at combating drug trafficking. In 2015, one of the airplanes conducted surveillance of the hostilities of the parties to the conflicts in the Middle East.

By 2016, Boeing upgraded nine of its radar aircraft using 32-bit systems. A little later, the Air Force announced a desire to install a hardware-software complex with a 64-bit configuration in the remaining aircraft. But here, one after another, problems began to appear in the systems on the updated aircraft. In particular, in a storm they could hardly determine the location of some targets, the computers overheated and failed.

But the worst thing is not even this, but the fact that computer systems have been exposed to hacking . Moreover, the probability of a successful hacking was high, after the attack of cybercriminals, according to experts, the onboard systems would be out of order.

The irony is that the planes wanted to upgrade in order to make them more efficient, taking advantage of all the advantages of modern technology. But the introduction of these technologies has opened the way for modern threats, in particular, the possibility of hacking into radar aircraft systems. Now, the Air Force will spend another two years trying to set up and rebuild the software and hardware of Block 40/45. In the meantime, the military will have to use aircraft with onboard systems of the 70s and 80s.