An electronic warfare aircraft is a military aircraft equipped for electronic warfare (EW) - i.e. degrading the effectiveness of enemy radar and radio systems.
In 1943 British Avro Lancaster aircraft were equipped with chaff to blind enemy air defence radars. They were supplemented by specially-equipped aircraft flown by No. 100 Group RAF, which operated modified Halifaxes, Liberators and Fortresses carrying various jammers such as Carpet, Airborne Cigar, Mandrel, Jostle, and Piperack.
Examples of modern aircraft designed or modified for EW include:
- EA-6B Prowler (US)
- EF-111A Raven (US)
- EC-130H Compass Call (US)
- EA-18G Growler (US)
- Tornado ECR (Germany-Italy)
- EF-10B Skynight (US)
- Mi-8PP (Soviet Union)
Famous quotes containing the words electronic and/or warfare:
“The war was won on both sides: by the Vietnamese on the ground, by the Americans in the electronic mental space. And if the one side won an ideological and political victory, the other made Apocalypse Now and that has gone right around the world.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“The chief reason warfare is still with us is neither a secret death-wish of the human species, nor an irrepressible instinct of aggression, nor, finally and more plausibly, the serious economic and social dangers inherent in disarmament, but the simple fact that no substitute for this final arbiter in international affairs has yet appeared on the political scene.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)