Aircraft

Perhaps timed to upstage a rival’s looming in-service milestone, Raytheon has spotlighted a demonstration of a unique feature of its developmental active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar.

The company’s APG-79 AESA, under development for the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet Block 2, completed a test to validate that the aircraft can use the radar’s ground-mapping mode to identify targets on the ground, feed their co-ordinates to a Boeing Joint Direct Attack Munition precision-guided kit-equipped weapon, and hit the target.

The test clears one of the final developmental hurdles before the APG-79 can enter the operational evaluation phase early next year, and is a reminder that the radar is the only multi-mode AESA in production for US forces, says Raytheon. The US Navy’s first Block 2 Super Hornet squadron is due to enter service in late 2006.

Northrop Grumman’s APG-77 AESA, expected to enter service this month with the Lockheed Martin/Boeing F/A-22, remains an air-to-air system, with the company contracted to upgrade the radar to multi-mode operation later this decade.

US export control officials are still working to decide whether to release the APG-79 AESA as part of Boeing’s plan to offer the Block 2 Super Hornet to India in its competition for 126 new fighters. Although Northrop’s APG-81 AESA has already been cleared for export with the United Arab Emirates’ Lockheed F-16E/Fs and Raytheon’s APG-63(V)3 will equip Singapore’s Boeing F-15Ts, the APG-79 release case presents new issues.

“Every export case has unique requirements,” says Capt Aaron Bowman, AESA programme manager for the Super Hornet team.

STEPHEN TRIMBLE/WASHINGTON DC