Spectrum Warfare Wing Boss on the Hunt for Tools to Reprogram F-35 and Others Faster
Dec. 12, 2024 | By Shaun Waterman
NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.—Col. Larry Fenner Jr., the commander of the Air Force’s only Spectrum Warfare Wing, came to the Association of Old Crows electronic warfare trade show looking for tools he can use to automate key parts of his mission workload. He’s going to have to keep looking.
“I’ve seen a lot of promising tools that are coming out here, but I’m not sold yet,” he told Air & Space Forces Magazine on the sidelines of the conference. “I’m going to do a little bit more engagement and see what solutions industry has available… to make me go faster and optimize my reprogramming process.”
That process—reprogramming the Mission Data Files, or MDFs, for modern warplanes—is one of the core missions of Fenner’s unit, the 350th Spectrum Warfare Wing, based out of Eglin Air Force in Florida. MDFs are the brains of a fifth-generation warplane like the F-35, helping its systems distinguish friend from foe by their electromagnetic signatures and programming its EW equipment with the latest data about enemy EW tactics.
Historically, Fenner said, reprogramming was run as an “industrial model … maybe annually or semi–annually.” The 350th SWW was set up in 2021 in part to speed that up and made the process relevant in a shooting war.
https://www.airandspaceforces.com/spectrum-warfare-wing-boss-reprogram-f-35s/
