Northrop
Grumman to Supply Airborne Fire Control Radars to Thailand, Iraq and Oman for
F-16s
BALTIMORE, Northrop
Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) has received an $87.8 million foreign military
sales (FMS) contract to provide the APG-68(V)9 airborne fire control radar to
Thailand, Iraq and Oman for use on F-16 fighter aircraft.
The company
will deliver six radar systems to the Royal Thai Air Force, 22 radar systems to
the Iraqi air force and 15 radar systems to the Royal Air Force of Oman, for a
total of 43 systems. Deliveries are expected to be completed by March 2015. The
FMS contract is managed by the Aeronautical Systems Center, Wright-Patterson
Air Force Base, Ohio.
"Selection
of the APG-68(V)9 Fire Control Radar by Thailand, Oman and Iraq reaffirms its
value and baseline position for all new F-16 production and F-16 avionics
upgrades," said Tim Winter, Northrop Grumman's vice president for Global
Systems Solutions. "The APG-68(V)9 radar's operational performance,
affordable acquisition cost, low sustainment cost and immediate availability
has led 12 nations to procure almost 750 systems so far."
The
APG-68(V)9 enables engagement of air-to-air and air-to-surface threats with
greater accuracy and at greater ranges than legacy F-16 fire control radars.
The radar provides autonomous, all-environment, precision air-to-surface
targeting with a high-resolution synthetic aperture radar ground mapping mode.
Northrop
Grumman has been developing, integrating and producing F-16 fire control radars
for 36 years. This includes three variants of the APG-66; eight variants of the
APG-68; the APG-80 Airborne Electronically Scanned Array (AESA), developed
specifically for the F-16 Block 60; and the newly introduced Scalable Agile
Beam Radar (SABR) AESA. The company's long heritage in fire control radars also
includes fire control radars for the B-1, F-22 and the F-35 Joint Strike
Fighter.
The contract
is in line with U.S. defense policy of enabling the Iraqi air force to assume
sovereign air defense duties, and also supports foreign relations with partners
Thailand and Oman.
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