Northrop continues AESA SABR upgrade for F-16s
Northrop Grumman is to provide more AESA radars for USAF F-16 aircraft under a $18.73 million contract modification, the DoD announced on 19 June.
Work will cover upgrades to the RF target generator and microwave components in the AN/APG-83 AESA scalable agile-beam radar (SABR) radar, for completion by April 2023.
In December 2019 the USAF announced a $1 billion contract for Northrop Grumman to develop and produce up to 372 AN/APG-83 SABR units for active, reserve and Air National Guard F-16s.
The AN/APG-83 SABR is designed to replace the existing AN/APG-66 and AN/APG-68 conventional radars used by legacy F-16s.
The new AESA radar enables the F-16 to detect, track and identify a greater number of targets faster and at longer ranges compared to legacy systems. In addition, it features all-weather, high-resolution synthetic aperture radar mapping to present the pilot with a large surface image for more precise target identification and strike.
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