Sweden signs contract for $552 million Gripen E/F sale to Thailand
The confirmed order now makes Thailand the third country to operate the Gripen E/F aircraft, after sales to Sweden and Brazil.
The pod was tested under an army MC-12W. (Photo: US Army)
Lockheed Martin has successfully test flown its Multi-Function Electronic Warfare-Air Large (MFEW-AL) airborne electronic pod payload under a fixed-wing crewed aircraft for the first time.
The company noted that it is the first time in decades US Army Electronic Warfare (EW) soldiers successfully conducted a series of airborne EW operations against a variety of threat emitters. The test flight marked a milestone which moved the system closer from system development to initial production.
The system has previously been tested under an MQ-1C Gray Eagle UAS but this test used an army fixed-wing aircraft, MC-12W, which a Lockheed Martin spokesperson said had allowed, according to the company, ‘the team to demonstrate the system is platform agnostic and can be tailored to a variety of configurations’.
The system – a single, self-contained, airborne electronic warfare pod – can be equipped on a variety of aircraft based on mission requirements, according to Lockheed Martin. The company noted that it had utilised advanced technology with a system architecture based on the C5ISR/EW Modular Open Suite of Standards, which it said would provide the essential aerial component of the integrated EW system in multi-domain operations.
Deon Viergutz, vice-president of spectrum convergence at Lockheed Martin, said: ‘This demonstration expanded upon all testing of the MFEW-AL system to date, bringing to bear a more complete hardware and software configuration that gets us closer to delivering this technology to our EW soldiers.’
The confirmed order now makes Thailand the third country to operate the Gripen E/F aircraft, after sales to Sweden and Brazil.
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