L3Harris Technologies has received a $300 million contract for a programme to supply Italy with a pair of electronic attack (EA) aircraft based on the Gulfstream G550 long-range business jet.

“The modified G550 will provide the Italian air force with an airborne jamming ability with range, altitude and endurance to disrupt enemy command and control, communications radars and navigation systems from an extended distance,” the US mission system provider says.

Italy’s order represents the first Foreign Military Sales success for the EA-37B Compass Call system, which is currently entering service with the US Air Force (USAF). For that programme, L3Harris is the platform prime contractor, with BAE Systems Inc as the mission system prime.

When detailing the possible sale to Rome last October, the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency said the overall project could be worth up to $680 million.

“We will be working on these aircraft and building them with the Italian air force in the coming years,” L3Harris Integrated Mission Systems president Jon Rambeau said while revealing the company’s contract at the Royal International Air Tattoo (RIAT) in the UK on 19 July.

“The aircraft are with Gulfstream, which is currently putting the [sensor housing] shapes on the outside,” he says.

BAE, meanwhile, on 21 July confirmed its receipt of a $12 million subcontract from L3Harris.

Its award will span the supply of equipment including “racks, radomes, cables, and harnesses to prepare for the installation of advanced electronic warfare mission systems”.

Being acquired to replace EA-roled Lockheed Martin EC-130Hs, the USAF’s new Compass Call fleet will eventually total 10 jets. Its 43rd Electronic Combat Squadron on 2 May conducted its first mission training sortie with the EA-37B from Davis-Monthan AFB in Arizona.

Italy’s future introduction of the dedicated electronic attack capability will mark a further expansion to its G550-based special mission aircraft fleet.

L3Harris also is advancing work on two examples in a Joint Airborne Multi-mission, Multi-sensor System (JAMMS) configuration, ordered in February 2021.

Describing that version as a “companion aircraft” for Rome’s future Compass Call jets, Rambeau says: “JAMMS is [for] passive signals collection, so they can work as a team”.

Previously described as to serve in a “strategic intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and electronic warfare” role, the aircraft’s configuration includes a canoe fairing beneath the forward fuselage. It also has a retractable electro-optical/infrared sensor turret, stored within a housing beneath the tail.

“The JAMMS aircraft are in our factory in Greenville, [Texas], and are currently having their mission systems installed,” Rambeau says.

The Italian air force already operates two G550-based E-550A conformal airborne early warning aircraft from Pratica di Mare air base. The type’s sensor package has as its centrepiece Elta Systems’ EL/W-2085 active electronically scanned array radar.

Story updated with details of subcontract award to BAE Systems Inc, and around the prime contractor arrangement for the US Air Force’s EA-37B programme.