Lockheed Martin [LMT] recently performed the first flight of its Legion Pod multi-function sensor system the company is offering for the Air Force’s F-15C infrared search and track (IRST) program, according to a company executive.
The flight took place on a F-16 without any hardware or software modifications to the aircraft, Lockheed Martin Legion Pod Program Manager Paul Hey told Defense Daily Wednesday. Hey said Legion Pod flew with tactical pilots flying tactical scenarios, which he said demonstrated the capability of the pod in a tactical environment. Hey declined to provide details of what Legion Pod tracked during its first flight. Legion Pod supports collaborative targeting operations among multiple aircraft in radar-denied environments, according to a Lockheed Martin statement.
Hey said the Legion Pod configuration flown in its first flight housed Lockheed Martin’s IRST21 system, which the company is developing with Boeing [BA] for the Navy’s IRST program that will deploy on F/A-18 Super Hornets. The IRST21 sensor received approval from the Navy in January to enter low-rate initial production (LRIP) (Defense Daily, Jan. 23). Lockheed Martin, Hey said, is well into developmental testing for the Navy’s IRST21 program and is transitioning into operational testing.
Lockheed Martin, Hey said, hasn’t found another buyer for Legion Pod since it sold its first unit to an unspecified Defense Department buyer earlier this year. The company, he said, is targeting Legion Pod primarily toward the F-15C IRST program of record. Hey said Lockheed Martin has not seen a request for proposals (RFP) for the F-15C IRST program yet after the Air Force performed market research in late 2014. Air Force spokeswoman Susan Murphy said the service would be unable to comment by press time Wednesday.
The IRST system, a new start program for fiscal year 2016 that could be worth as much as $283 million over its lifetime, would have extensive leveraging of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components and availability for increased growth through firmware and software reprogramming. The Air Force is taking a two-pronged approach to this solicitation: It is investigating the availability of both a production-ready IRST system for fielding in 2018 and the development of a system that would be ready for fielding in the 2020 timeframe.
The service wants an IRST system on the F-15C to improve its ability to detect, track, target and engage threats in radar-denied environments. According to Air Force budget documents, the IRST complements other onboard sensors by scanning a large volume of air space and fills gaps left by other sensors. This capability complements the radar to enhance survivability and lethality against air-to-air threats, provides a passive IR sensor system that searches for, and detects, IR energy and provides the aircraft mission computer track file data on infrared targets (Defense Daily, March 9).