The AN/ALQ-155 ECM power management system, developed in the 1970s, acts as a vintage barrage/noise jamming system. During FY96 and FY97, the AN/ALQ-155 became the B-52 ECM system with the highest failure rate, even though it did not have the highest CPFH rate. Management discovered that the root cause of the low system meantime between failures (MTBF) rate was the extensive use of Backwards Wave Oscillators (BWOs), a technology that pre-dates more reliable and supportable Traveling Wave Tubes (TWTs). Officials became deeply concerned since the BWOs characteristically had a low MTBF rate. Worst of all, they also realized that a lifetime weapon system purchase of BWOs, made by Air Force officials in the mid-1990s, provided only enough BWOs to sustain the AN/ALQ-155 ECM system through 2010. This problem had to be addressed during FY97. Planning began during the past fiscal year, and, pending funding, a final solution was attained during FY98.