The U.S. Air Force recently announced the successful completion of an operational assessment flight test to evaluate an advanced technology that promises to improve data transfer capabilities in older aircraft.

Overseen by the 646th Aeronautical Systems Squadron of Aeronautical Systems Center’s 77th Aeronautical Systems Wing here, the tests centered on the in-flight performance of an Extended 1553 Data Bus in an F-16 Block 30 aircraft. Much like DSL or a cable modem works in a home to carry voice, Internet and video over the same wire, E1553 uses a broadband frequency channel on the data cable to carry additional traffic and video.

The technology is being developed by Edgewater Computer Systems, Inc., of Kanata, Ontario, Canada.

The underlying message from the recent successful testing is that a major constraint to aircraft and weapons capabilities growth has been removed.

The results carry the potential to trigger interest in the E1553 across the Air Force, according to Col. Craig Olson, commander of the 77th AESW.

“It was absolutely vital to the E1553 program that we demonstrate its operation in a relevant environment,” said Col. Olson. “With a revolutionary potential capability like E1553, people need to see it work to believe that the technology has utility to a platform like the F-15. Consequently, there’s a certain amount of ‘if you build it, they will come’ involved.”

The program is a key element in the Air Force’s efforts to expand data throughput rates in legacy aircraft, including the F-16, F-15, C-17, B-2 and others. The challenge facing today’s Air Force is how to enable legacy aircraft to leverage today’s computer processing and high-speed data transfer without incurring the enormous cost of replacing the existing data cabling in each aircraft or redesigning the bus infrastructure.

In most legacy aircraft, the bus infrastructure is based on Military-Standard-1553B that was developed in the early 1970’s.

Although technology has advanced dramatically since that time, the legacy 1553B has remained a key element of military aircraft avionics architecture, due to its flexibility, cost effectiveness and stability, and has been incorporated into the F-22 and the F-35.

Units within the Ogden Air Logistics Center at Hill AFB, Utah, served as the program lead for flight testing the Edgewater-developed technology, with EFW, Inc., of Fort Worth, Texas, playing a key industry role providing the avionics boxes.

According to Col. Olson, ASC will continue working in conjunction with the warfighter commands to evaluate the applicability of E1553 against other candidate technologies.

He further underscored that the results of the flight test could prove a significant turning point.

“The capability to move large data files at high speed represents a potential paradigm shift in how new mission requirements could be defined.”

Duane Anderson, president of Edgewater Computer Systems, echoed Col. Olson’s enthusiasm.

“The successful flight test of Extended 1553 in an operational environment is a significant achievement toward cost-effectively enabling the near-term capability needs of the warfighter.”

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