AESA upgrade battle heats up for F/A-18 Hornets
1/20/2015

A new competition has emerged to upgrade the radars for potentially hundreds of the original Boeing F/A-18 Hornet fighters operated by US and foreign militaries.

Northrop Grumman and Raytheon have confirmed plans to offer tailored versions of each company’s active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars for so-called “legacy” F/A-18 Hornets, including A, B, C, D models.

Raytheon recently performed a flight test of the APG-79(V)X radar, a system scaled down from the APG-79 installed on the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet.

“I was sitting in the testbed myself and watching it real time it felt like watching the APG-79 I saw in the fleet,” says Michael “Ponch” Garcia, a Raytheon business development director and former US Navy F/A-18E/F pilot and instructor.



Meanwhile, Northrop offers the scaleable agile beam radar (SABR) as an upgrade for legacy Lockheed Martin F-16s, but it can be adapted for older F/A-18s.

Northrop “believes SABR to be a natural fit for the aircraft. With common modes leveraged from the [Lockheed] F-35, the APG-83 SABR would bring fifth-generation aircraft [radio frequency] performance to the Hornet, and extend its operational relevance for the life of the platform,” says Jeff Leavitt, vice-president for combat avionics systems.

The F/A-18 upgrade market had previously been limited to the Super Hornet variant, but several recent moves have made retrofits for legacy Hornets feasible.

Last October, the US Marine Corps released a long-term aviation plan which deferred the retirement of its last F/A-18C/D units by five years to 2030, matching the service life expected by the Finnish air force. Meanwhile, voters in Switzerland last May rejected a plan to replace F/A-18s with Saab Gripens.

Raytheon’s Garcia says a Hornet radar upgrade is being considered by the USMC and international operators, but declines to identify the potential foreign customers.

“Especially now with the way the budgets are they’ve got to figure out how to keep what they have going longer, and then, once they krack that nut, figure out how to keep them relevant,” Garcia says.

Replacing mechanically-scanned APG-65s or APG-73s with an AESA could drive additional upgrades. Some customers are considering replacing the mission computer and other systems, such as radar warning receivers.

“That’s kind of the discussions we’re in right now: what is the optimal upgrade path that supports this to give you the most bang for the buck,” he says.

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/art...ornets-408074/

Legacy Hornets Can Soar with AESA radar
Marhalim Abas January 13, 2015



SHAH ALAM: AS I was hearing talk that some low houred legacy Hornets could be on the market within the next three years, I received this email from Raytheon.

Latest Raytheon AESA Radar Soars in Flight Test
New capabilities designed to lengthen F/A-18C-D Hornet’s relevance

EL SEGUNDO, Calif., Jan. 12, 2015 — A successful flight test of the Raytheon-built APG-79(V)X AESA radar system has demonstrated the functions needed to extend the relevance of F/A-18C/D Hornet fighter/attack jets, including:

extended detection ranges
simultaneous air-to-air and air-to-ground capabilities
production of high-resolution synthetic aperture radar (SAR) mapping
industry leading reliability

“We put our latest AESA radar capability to the test and it exceeded our expectations,” said Mike “Ponch” Garcia, business development director of Tactical Airborne Systems for Raytheon’s Space and Airborne Systems business, and a former F/A-18E/F Super Hornet pilot/instructor. “Our APG-79(V)X combines the best features of our AESA portfolio to ensure low risk and give F/A-18C/D a tactical advantage for the next 15 to 20 years.”

The company has delivered more than 500 tactical AESA tactical radars from its portfolio that includes the APG-79, APG-63(V)3 and APG-82(V)1 for F-15, F/A-18E/F, EA-18G and B-2 aircraft. The APG-79 system, a U.S. Navy program of record, flies globally on F/A-18E/F Super Hornets and EA-18G Growlers, and has seen service in four combat theaters since its first delivery in 2006.

“Raytheon fielded the world’s first operational AESA radar for fighter aircraft in 2000,” said Roy Azevedo, vice president for Raytheon’s Space and Airborne Systems business. “Our portfolio of tactical AESA radars has now flown more than 500,000 operational hours – an industry first. We will continue to advance this technology to give our warfighters the greatest possible tactical advantage.”

This is very interesting development indeed. AFAIK the latest upgrades of RMAF Hornet fleet does not involved replacing its APG-73 radar. So we could opt for the radar upgrade within the next five years. With the upgrade, our Hornets could also sport an AESA radar with a similar capability to the one specified for the MRCA programme.

With the number of APG-73 users declining, the cost of supporting them will surely increase in the near future making the transition to the AESA almost elementary. And if the low houred legacy Hornets does enter the market, and if we decide to get them – it will also make sense to enhance them with the APG-79 (V)X.

It must be noted that availability of the legacy Hornets remained uncertain especially with the current low oil prices.

Raytheon’s description of the APG-73.

“The APG-73 external link is an all-weather, multimode, multiwaveform search-and-track sensor that uses programmable digital processors needed for both air-to-air and air-to-surface missions. It is an upgrade of the AN/APG-65 that provides higher throughput and greater memory. The APG-65 equipped original F/A-18 Hornet fighters, and still serves in that capacity with some air forces.

The most modern APG-73 Phase II upgrade incorporates a motion-sensing subsystem with reconnaissance software, a stretch waveform generator module, and a special test equipment instrumentation and reconnaissance module. With these enhancements, the F/A-18 aircraft have the hardware capability to make high-resolution radar ground maps comparable with those of the F-15E and the U-2 aircraft, and be able to perform precision strike missions using advanced image correlation algorithms.

Raytheon lists the APG-73 as operational in U.S. Navy F/A-18 C/D Hornets and E/F Super Hornets; U.S. Marine Corps F/A-18 A+, C and Ds; upgraded F/A-18 A/Bs flown by Australia and Canada; and in the F/A-18 C/Ds flown by Finland, Malaysia, and Switzerland.”

— Malaysian Defence

http://www.malaysiandefence.com/?p=5691