Northrop Grumman Corporation (NGC) 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 6 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. 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,” said Tim Winter, Northrop Grumman's Vice President for Global Systems Solutions.

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.

 

Photo: Iraq’s F-16 Fighters