This is what I’ve found:
https://medium.com/war-is-boring/bzzt-marine-corps-jets-are-jamming-islamic-state-c7d9abcdde8e
I learned about it from a buddy of mine who was a plane captain on Prowlers for the Marines. I have a few ideas on how it could be accomplished, but signal processing and communications weren’t exactly my strongest suits either in undergrad, so…
Wicked! Thanks mate 
very interesting stuff.
Yeah… we give growlers crap for being nerds, but they do some amazing stuff on the EW side of the house - stuff that you simply can’t accomplish outside of a dedicated EW asset.
Could you accomplish some EW tasks from a modern fighter? Sure the potential is there - and most fighters have some sort of self protect jammer - but that doesn’t bring near the capabilities of something like a growler.
I agree it’s mind boggling that the Air Force doesn’t have something similar, or that they haven’t bought their own, but it appears that’s where we’re at right now.
All those billions, and they can’t replace a spark vark. Yeah that does boggle the mind.
On the other hand, replacing ancient tankers turned out to be at least as hard as getting the One Ring to mount Doom, so yeah.
Not sexy like pointy nosed go-fast jet fighters.
I can’t speak much for the other EW platforms, but SIGINT like the RC-12 have been very high demand platforms for the past 20 years, and all it does is grab all kinds of signals. As one might imagine, that’s also a motherload of intelligence, which is kinda necessary to have for the pointy nosed jets to do their jobs.
U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles from the 492d Fighter Squadron, RAF Lakenheath, conduct flight-line operations and takeoffs, with other NATO fighter aircraft, while on TDY (Temporary Duty Yonder) at Los Llanos Air Base in Spain. Filmed on February 22, 2019 during Tactical Leadership Program, which promotes interoperability of NATO nations and promotes war fighting capabilities.
Early look at the F-35 aerobatic demo:
Exactly. The Air Force seems to be trying it’s hardest to get out of the business that’s not anything pointy-nosed and go-fast, and my understanding is that this has to do with the fact that the service is run pretty much entirely by fighter pilots. My KC-135 pilot friend and I have had a few drunken conversations about this (well, he talked, I nodded and listened. Must be a pilot thing).
But even if it is, which I don’t doubt, isn’t it incredible shortsightedm nay childish to only care about the go-fast pointy nose stuff? All of the fighter pilots I heard so far, in aircrew interviews, the fighter pilot podcast and here on the forum are professional, cool-headed people with a rational outlook on things. They don’t strike me as childish (beyond navy callsigns :P) at all. So would this make sense as an explanation for the way your airforce is run? Really?
I think it has more to do with politics. The politicos can sell pointy-nose stuff better because it is sexy. Voters vote sexy, not boring. It’s how you folks ended up with the utter genius currently occupying the white house.
That was outstanding RB66. Thanks for linking. 
Last of the Marine EA-6B Prowlers is getting retired on Friday…
Did you just call you-know-who sexy? Or pointy nosed? Now i’m confused.
No I implied choosing him and the sort of things he espouses childish and shortsighted. A bit like selling a bad product with lot’s of barenaked ladies.
I should have added a smiley to that.
We should probably not get into that here.
Because they joined to fly and do a job, not focus on their career. Most of those guys didn’t reach flag level; they were happy where they were at. The guys who go for promotion after promotion… Those are the ones to watch out for. And it is very difficult to get into a top slot without having time in fighters. Thus, you end up with people who’s primary focus is on their own careers rather than what is good for the force and the country as a whole. This is true regardless of branch.
I mean, they ARE Canada’s best-selling all-time rock band…
Here’s something you don’t see everyday, an F/A-18C from VMFA-323 rocking a 10 AMRAAM, 2 AIM-9X loadout.
Whoa. I’m wondering if this was a live shoot or something.
Spamraam! F yeah!
Good question. I didn’t see any blue bands on the weapons, and VMGR-352 has supported live fire exercises in the W-291 in the past…