Boeing B‑52 CONECT System Completes Flight Test Milestone

WICHITA, Kan., Dec. 12, 2011 — Today Boe­ing [NYSE: BA] announced com­ple­tion of all flight test­ing need­ed for the B‑52 Com­bat Net­work Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Tech­nol­o­gy (CONECT) pro­gram to receive low rate ini­tial pro­duc­tion (LRIP) autho­riza­tion from the U.S. Air Force. The flight test pro­gram was con­duct­ed at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., by Boe­ing and the Air Force.
“Com­ple­tion of the LRIP flight test phase means CONECT is ready to be reviewed by our cus­tomer for ini­tial pro­duc­tion autho­riza­tion,” said Scot Oathout, B‑52 pro­gram direc­tor. “CONECT increas­es B‑52 oper­a­tional effec­tive­ness by pro­vid­ing improved mis­sion flex­i­bil­i­ty, increased sit­u­a­tion­al aware­ness and new net­work-cen­tric capa­bil­i­ties. In addi­tion, CONECT paves the way for eas­i­er inte­gra­tion of future upgrades.”
Mile­stone C autho­riza­tion for low-rate ini­tial pro­duc­tion is expect­ed in mid-2012.
The CONECT mod­i­fi­ca­tion pro­vides the abil­i­ty to change a mis­sion, as well as change the tar­get of a weapon, while the B‑52 is in flight. The sys­tem pro­vides increased sit­u­a­tion­al aware­ness for B‑52 crews by adding sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ca­tion data links and full-col­or LCD dis­plays with real-time intel­li­gence feeds over­laid on mov­ing maps. CONECT also enables future B‑52 improve­ments with its onboard, high-speed net­work.
A unit of The Boe­ing Com­pa­ny, Boe­ing Defense, Space & Secu­ri­ty is one of the world’s largest defense, space and secu­ri­ty busi­ness­es spe­cial­iz­ing in inno­v­a­tive and capa­bil­i­ties-dri­ven cus­tomer solu­tions, and the world’s largest and most ver­sa­tile man­u­fac­tur­er of mil­i­tary air­craft. Head­quar­tered in St. Louis, Boe­ing Defense, Space & Secu­ri­ty is a $32 bil­lion busi­ness with 63,000 employ­ees worldwide. 

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Con­tact:
Jen­nifer Hogan
Main­te­nance, Mod­i­fi­ca­tions & Upgrades
405–818-7859
jennifer.c.hogan@boeing.com