U.S. Air Force to upgrade F-16 AESA radar
NewsJune 09, 2017
BALTIMORE, Md. The U.S. Air Force has chosen Northrop Grumman?s APG-83 scalable agile beam radar (SABR) as the active electronically scanned array (AESA) for its planned radar upgrade on its F-16 fighter aircraft. Northrop Grumman will upgrade 72 U.S. Air National Guard F-16s to meet a U.S. Northern Command Joint Emergent Operational Need for homeland defense.
The radar upgrade aims to extend the operational viability and reliability of the F-16; it gives pilots 5th-generation fighter radar capabilities to detect, counter, and defeat increasingly sophisticated threats. The bandwidth and speed of the Northrop Grumman APG-83 SABR enables the F-16 to identify greater numbers of targets faster, at longer ranges, and in hostile electronic environments; it also features all-weather, high-resolution synthetic aperture radar (SAR) mapping, which presents the pilot with a large surface image for greater precision in targeting and striking.
