Northrop Grumman SABR selected for F-16 AESA upgrade

Northrop Grumman will supply its Scalable Agile Beam Radar (SABR) for the US Air Force and Taiwan F-16 radar modernisation and upgrade programme, following the company’s competitive selection by Lockheed Martin.

Northrop Grumman’s SABR airborne fire control radar is a multifunction active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar designed for low risk retrofit in current F-16s and is scalable for integration in other aircraft. SABR provides improved situational awareness, greater detection, high-resolution SAR maps, automatic target cueing, electronic protection, interleaved air-to-air and air-to-surface mode operations, and all-environment precision strike capability.

Joseph Ensor, vice president and general manager of Northrop Grumman’s ISR and Targeting Systems Division, said: ‘The F-16 has been a front-line fighter for the air force for more than 30 years, and SABR will keep it there for decades to come. We built on our rich heritage of active electronically scanned array innovation to deliver fifth generation fighter radar capability to the F-16. SABR will provide F-16s unprecedented operational capability, greater reliability and viability in threat environments beyond 2025.’

Roderick McLean, vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin’s F-16/F-22 Integrated Fight Group, added: ‘The conclusion of the AESA radar competition marks the next chapter in the Fighting Falcon’s ongoing evolution – the F-16V. This next generation radar will deliver unprecedented capabilities to the most widely used 4th generation fighter ever flown.’

Work on the F-16 AESA radar programme will be performed at Northrop Grumman’s Electronic Systems sector headquarters facility in Linthicum.