Every so often here on the fighter pilot podcast, we like to showcase the hardworking men and women of our defense industry partners.

Those are the companies ensuring our frontline combat aircraft feature the latest weapons system.

Today, it is my pleasure to introduce Mr. Robert Raymond, a former F-16 pilot, who is now the director of business development for the electronic warfare

airborne combat systems sector at L3 Harris Technologies. Trip, welcome to the show.

Hey, Jello, it's really great to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, you're welcome. It's good to have

you on the show, and I look forward to our discussion because we have had past episodes on

electronic attack. That was number 83 with

Dave Kurtz. And we had Wild Weasels. That was 113 with Dan Hampton, perhaps a colleague of yours.

Remind us what electronic warfare is and why it is so important in military aviation.

You bet. So what I will tell you is I was a wild weasel in the F-16 for a number of years and I would say until I got to

industry I truly did not appreciate or understand what electronic warfare brings to the fight and you

probably had a similar experience and most fighter pilots I think electronic warfare is one of those

things like oxygen.

If you don't have it, you really miss it.

But if you do have it and everything works, you don't even think about it.

And the way that I would describe it from my career is I had a couple of switches that I would turn on.

And I would just assume that it either works or doesn't work.

I would go about my business without really even thinking about it.

That worked for a long time, and I think as we move into the current battlefield that

the warfighters have to fight in, I don't think we have the luxury of thinking of electronic

warfare in that same way.

And so that doesn't really answer your question directly, Jill, what is electronic warfare?

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