US Navy Advances Raytheon’s New Electronic Warfare System for F/A-18 Super Hornet

Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) has announced plans to procure upgrade kits from Raytheon, an RTX business, to modernize the electronic warfare suite aboard the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fleet. NAVAIR intends to award Raytheon a sole-source contract covering “initial production capability” for the system.

The upgrade is built around Raytheon’s Advanced Electronic Warfare (ADVEW) system, developed as the planned replacement for the Super Hornet’s existing AN/ALQ-214 integrated countermeasures suite and AN/ALR-67(V)3 radar warning receiver. The new system is intended to sharpen threat-detection accuracy and improve the aircraft’s overall survivability against increasingly sophisticated radar and electronic threats.

Raytheon has cleared a series of critical design reviews during ADVEW’s development. The most recent review confirmed progress on prototype software, its integration with flight-representative hardware, and conformance to the government-established reference architecture. Upcoming milestones include additional deliveries of airborne kits and demonstrations supporting government-led integration testing.

The ADVEW program originated from an $80 million prototype contract the Navy awarded Raytheon in 2023. The company has since worked through several design-review milestones on the path toward production readiness.

Upgrading the Super Hornet’s electronic warfare suite is regarded as critical to preserving the aircraft’s survivability against increasingly capable air defense networks. The legacy systems currently fielded are struggling to keep pace with modern radar and jamming threats in contested environments.

NAVAIR’s sole-source approach reflects an assessment that, since ADVEW was developed specifically by Raytheon, bringing in an alternative supplier at this stage would be inefficient both technically and in terms of schedule. Such contracting arrangements are common once a program transitions from prototyping to production after extended single-vendor development.

Program officials note that fielding ADVEW across the Super Hornet fleet aligns with plans to keep the aircraft in service through the late 2030s. The Navy intends to keep the F/A-18E/F fleet flying for decades even as newer aircraft types enter service.

The exact contract value and delivery schedule have not been officially disclosed, though additional details are expected in the coming months as the procurement process moves forward.

Source: U.S. Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) / Raytheon (RTX).