The U.S. Air Force has downselected Northrop Grumman to complete the final project efforts to provide the electronic warfare suite for the service branch’s F-16 fighter aircraft fleet, the company reported on Monday. Northrop Grumman’s offering will work to protect pilots from radio frequency-guided weapons by detecting, identifying and defeating advanced threat systems.
“The electronic warfare suite will significantly increase protection to F-16 operators as they execute their missions in increasingly contested environments,” said Ryan Tintner, vice president, navigation, targeting and survivability, Northrop Grumman.
Northrop Grumman’s system will integrate full-spectrum radar warning, threat identification and advanced countermeasure capabilities, as well as pulse-to-pulse operability with the F-16’s AN/APG-83 Scalable Agile Beam Radar (SABR), which is also built by Northrop Grumman.
The company’s electronic warfare suite leverages an open systems, ultra wideband architecture. The architecture will deliver the immediate bandwidth needed to defeat threats. The F-16 system can be adapted to protect a variety of platforms and mission requirements.
The system shares a common technology baseline with the AC/MC-130J Radio Frequency Countermeasures Program and AN/APR-39 radar warning receivers. The electronic warfare suite configuration is scalable to meet both U.S. and international partners’ operational needs in either an internal or podded configuration.
“This system draws on the best of our experience from multiple programs to create an effective and affordable solution to keep the Viper relevant throughout its service life,” Tintner added.
The agreement was issued under SOSSEC Consortium’s Air Force Open System Acquisition Initiative (OSAI) Other Transaction Agreement (OTA) for prototyping. Northrop Grumman will continue to team with non-traditional defense contractors for the execution of this OTA project.
About Northrop Grumman
Northrop Grumman solves the toughest problems in space, aeronautics, defense and cyberspace to meet the ever evolving needs of our customers worldwide. Our 90,000 employees define possible every day using science, technology and engineering to create and deliver advanced systems, products and services.
