The cost to the taxpayer of converting 12 RAAF Super Hornets into $250 million electronic warfare warriors, or ''Growlers'', has increased almost six fold from $300 million to $1.7 billion. By the time they are expected to come on line around the end of the decade, the planes' jamming pods will be close to their use-bydate. The United States government has had to accelerate its ''next generation jammer'' program to counter problems with its own Growler fleet and the results of that research could be operational by the early 2020s. Source: Naval Open Source INTelligence
