Northrop Grumman Awarded Air Force Contract to Integrate CLIP on B-1B and B-52 Aircraft

Northrup Grumman ^ | 10/21/2010 | Northup Grumman

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

The U.S. Air Force has awarded Northrop Grumman Corporation a $14 million contract extension to integrate its Common Link Integration Processing (CLIP) system on B-1B and B-52 aircraft, providing aircrews with enhanced battlefield awareness, communications capabilities and weapons management. Under the 17-month contract extension, Northrop Grumman will support software integration, ground and flight tests, and Air Force and joint interoperability certifications. All 66 aircraft in the B-1 bomber fleet and 94 aircraft in the B-52 fleet will be CLIP enabled. CLIP is a software package that allows existing platforms without a tactical data link, as well as platforms with different data links, to communicate with each other.

[JRandomFreeper]

The BUFF original design (before I was born) was pretty much done on paper over a weekend with two engineers and a typist in a hotel (I always wondered about the back story on that).

It was flying the day I was born, was modified, used, changed, deleted, recovered, and still it flies. Given where I live, I wouldn't be suprised to hear one fly over as I pass off this mortal coil.

And they are going to upgrade it to electronics that were less believeable than science fiction to the guys that originally designed that lawn dart.

And it's never flown it's design mission (Thank God).

Hat tip to the engineers that did the skull sweat. That's one hell of a system.

/johnny

[OCC]

Nice they can make this upgrade for the frugal amount of $14 million, scary that there are only 160 strategic bombers left to upgrade.

[JRandomFreeper]

They chopped a LOT of them up in the desert.

Bad bargain, that.

/johnny

[Celtic Conservative]

I've heard some defense department estimates say that the BUFF will be in service nearly long enough to see its 100th birthday. That ,My friends is return on investment.

CC