L3Harris is pitching its Viper Shield electronic warfare (EW) system for Lockheed Martin KF-16 fighters operated by the Republic of Korea Air Force (ROKAF).
“The world has changed,” says Travis Ruhl, L3Harris’s international sales leader for the Viper Shield product.
“It’s no longer a permissive EW environment when it comes to advanced threats and what you need. Viper Shield is an advanced all-digital EW self-protection system for the F-16,” he says.
The ROKAF is upgrading 134 KF-16 Block 52s to the KF-16V standard. The work includes the addition of the Northrop Grumman AN/APG-83 active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, an updated cockpit, new weapons integration, a structural life extension, and other improvements.
The current upgrade work does not include a new EW system. To raise awareness about Viper Shield – designated AN/ALQ-254 – L3Harris promoted the system at the recent Seoul ADEX defence show.
Viper Shield comes in two versions. The AN/ALQ-254(V)1 is integrated within the F-16’s fuselage and is the baseline EW system for new-build F-16 Block 70/72s. It was also selected by Poland for its F-16 upgrade programme.
The AN/ALQ-254(V2) is in a pod, which the company first announced in late September. The ADEX event marked the first time the company has promoted the podded version of Viper Shield internationally.
Ruhl, a former F-16 pilot, says that the performance of the internally-mounted and podded versions of Viper Shield is basically the same. The podded version may have the advantage of being more cost effective.
“You buy about 50% of the pods for the number of aircraft in your fleet, and you pull them off one airplane and put them on the airplanes flying that day,” says Ruhl.
He adds that Viper Shield is a mature product given the system’s incorporation with new-build Block 70s.
Northrop also produces an EW upgrade for the F-16 in the form of the AN/ALQ-257 Integrated Viper Electronic Warfare Suite (IVEWS). The IVEWS system was adopted by the US Air Force for its F-16s. Turkey also selected IVEWS for its F-16 upgrade effort.
