The AN/APQ-188 radar improve for the B-52 is lastly making ready to start flight testing, following years of delays, value overruns, and a program evaluation.
The U.S. Air Pressure’s long-running effort to equip the B-52 Stratofortress with a brand new radar is transferring nearer to flight testing. Lt. Gen. Andrew J. Gebara, Deputy Chief of Workers for Strategic Deterrence and Nuclear Integration, supplied an replace on the B-52 Radar Modernization Program (RMP) throughout a web based occasion hosted by the Air & Area Forces Affiliation’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Research on Aug. 27, 2025.
“I imagine that we’re very near getting that first radar to Edwards Air Pressure Base to start flight take a look at,” Gebara mentioned, including that he was “very keen” to see the milestone reached, talking additionally from the attitude of a former B-52 pilot. The beginning of flight testing may mark a possible turning level in a modernization program that has confronted important schedule slips, value overruns, and a congressional evaluation.
The Radar Modernization Program
The radar improve is a cornerstone of the broader B-52J configuration, which additionally contains new engines, up to date avionics, and structural enhancements meant to maintain the bomber fleet in service via 2050. The brand new radar, Raytheon’s AN/APQ-188 – additionally known as the Bomber Modernized Radar System – is supposed to interchange the out of date mechanically scanned AN/APQ-166 that has been in use because the Chilly Warfare.
The AN/APQ-188 is an lively electronically scanned array (AESA) radar derived primarily from the AN/APG-79 discovered on the U.S. Navy’s F/A-18E/F Tremendous Hornet and EA-18G Growler, with further parts from the AN/APG-82 of the U.S. Air Pressure’s F-15E and F-15EX. By leveraging current, confirmed designs, the Air Pressure aimed to manage prices whereas giving the B-52 entry to trendy multi-mode AESA capabilities.
AESA radars convey important benefits over mechanically scanned programs. Amongst these are elevated detection vary, improved decision, better resistance to jamming, and multifunctional capabilities that may additionally help digital warfare.
For the B-52, the brand new radar is anticipated to reinforce goal acquisition, doubtlessly with floor transferring goal indication and artificial aperture radar features. Moreover, though it’s optimized for air-to-ground roles, the brand new radar may nonetheless retain air-to-air capabilities to the bomber defend towards air-to-air threats.
Delays And Value Development
Regardless of these ambitions, this system has confronted critical difficulties. Raytheon delivered the primary radar to the Air Pressure practically two years in the past, however flight testing, initially deliberate for Fiscal 12 months 2024, was postponed to Fiscal 12 months 2026. This delay additionally shifted the anticipated preliminary operational functionality from 2027 to a window between 2028 and 2030.
A June 2025 report from the Authorities Accountability Workplace (GAO) attributed the setbacks to challenges with environmental qualification, software program growth, and components procurement, whereas the Pentagon’s Director of Operational Check and Analysis (DOT&E) flagged difficulties in bodily integrating the radar into the B-52’s nostril part.
A uncommon view of B-52’s open nostril. In 2023, Boeing initiated a significant radar improve program for the B-52. The Radar Modernization Program (RMP) will equip the venerable B-52H with new, fighter-like radar capabilities. This improve will improve navigation accuracy, concentrating on,… pic.twitter.com/IIIM1iqWPi
— Air Energy (@RealAirPower1) December 13, 2024
The delays have been consequently accompanied by value development that triggered a Nunn-McCurdy breach earlier this yr. Below U.S. legislation, a big breach, outlined as a price enhance of a minimum of 15% from baseline, requires the service to inform Congress and evaluation this system.
Whereas the B-52 radar breach was not deemed essential, which might have required the Division of Protection to certify this system as important to nationwide safety, the Air Pressure nonetheless examined the radar’s necessities to establish potential value financial savings.
Balancing Capabilities And Prices
As Gebara defined through the Mitchell Institute occasion, the radar was deliberately based mostly on the F/A-18’s design as a result of it was available in the marketplace. “It could really value us extra if we requested to design a brand new radar,” he mentioned.
Nevertheless, this method additionally meant reassessing which options have been actually mandatory for the B-52’s mission. With the F/A-18 being a multirole plane, lots of its radar’s features – particularly air-to-air – wouldn’t be wanted by the B-52, and eradicating them would imply decreasing the complexity.
“We’ve a sure variety of minimal issues that we have to do to have the ability to do our B-52 mission,” Gebara added. “A part of the associated fee financial savings was what are these issues, to guarantee that we’re prioritizing treasured {dollars} on issues that we want, and never which might be good concepts or that we would like.”
That course of could imply the primary operational variations of the radar won’t embrace the entire superior capabilities initially envisioned, with others to be added at a later stage. Nonetheless, Gebara famous that the AN/APQ-188 supplies “alternatives for development sooner or later,” suggesting that certainly further features could possibly be added later if funding permits.
Earlier this yr, the Air Pressure additionally issued a Request for Info (RFI) on potential different radar choices, although it confused on the time that this was not a solicitation. When requested about the potential of choosing a unique radar, Gebara was clear: “I don’t imagine we’re going to pick out a unique radar. I feel we’re persevering with with the radar now we have, and I imagine it’s going to be flying to Edwards within the brief time period.”
Choosing a brand new radar at this stage would imply an extra enhance of the prices and, most significantly, one other delay to this system. This in flip would go away the bomber with no a lot wanted radar upgrades for a few years because the Air Pressure restructures its bomber drive.
The B-52J Modernization
The radar improve is only one a part of a wider modernization push for the Stratofortress, one of many Air Pressure’s oldest but most enduring platforms. One other essential effort, the Industrial Engine Alternative Program (CERP), is changing the B-52’s eight TF33 engines – out of manufacturing because the Eighties – with Rolls-Royce F130s.
Just like the radar program, the engine initiative has skilled schedule slips, with operational use no longer anticipated earlier than 2033, three years later than initially deliberate. Full fleet re-engining is probably not accomplished till 2036, based on The Warfare Zone.
Regardless of these delays, the modernization packages replicate the Air Pressure’s long-term dedication to the B-52. With its giant payload capability, world vary, and flexibility to trendy weapons, the Stratofortress stays central to the U.S. nuclear and standard strike mission.
In truth, as beforehand reported, the Air Pressure plans to maneuver to a two-type bomber fleet, based mostly on the brand new B-21 Raider stealth bomber and the upgraded B-52J. The upgrades would permit the B-52J to enhance the B-21 with long-range stand-off assault capabilities, whereas the stealth bomber would concentrate on penetrating closely defended airspaces.
