Boeing is now proposing the 737-700 Boeing Business Jet for the emerging U.S. Air Force JStars (Joint Surveillance and Target Attack Radar System) replacement program. Eyeing the same requirement, meanwhile, Northrop Grumman has been flying a smaller, company-owned Gulfstream G550 development aircraft. The Air Force is expected to issue a formal request for proposal soon, in a hurry-up effort that aims to replace the 19 aging current JStars (a Boeing 707 derivative) beginning in 2022. Five of those aircraft will be retired in FY2016 to help fund the replacement. A plan to re-engine them was abandoned.

Rod Meranda, a business development executive at Boeing Military Aircraft, said that the endurance requirement for the new JStars, as well as sensor size, weight and power considerations, suggested that the BBJ is the right size, especially with respect to crew comfort. An Air Force analysis of alternatives suggests that a “business-class jet” with a mission crew of about 10, compared with 18 on the current JStars, is the appropriate platform. Boeing previously proposed the larger 737-800, on which the P-8 Poseidon is based. “We will leverage our commercial 737 and existing military derivatives to produce an affordable solution with lower life-cycle costs,” Meranda said.

JStars is a battle management and command and control (BMC2) platform, as well as a radar platform. Both Boeing and Northrop Grumman have already received BMC2 risk-reduction contracts. Meranda declined to specify Boeing’s thinking on the radar, for which the Air Force may negotiate separately, although Boeing has been in discussion with “potential teaming partners,” he said.

Northrop Grumman is the incumbent supplier of the current JStars. A company spokesman declined to give detail on what radar options the company has explored. He told AIN that the company selected the G550 as a development aircraft because, as “the smallest, it was the hardest to do.”