Raytheon [RTN] executives said recently they believe South Korea will finish evaluating proposals from Raytheon and Northrop Grumman [NOC] for upgrading its F-16 fleet with modern electronic radars within the next couple of months.
“We’re negotiating the basic framework of cost schedule and capability, that should be coming to a close here within the next month or so,” Jim Hvizd, Raytheon vice president, international strategy and business development, space and airborne systems, said during an interview recently. “Then (South) Korea will look at their options sometime this summer and make that official Letter of Request for Letter of Offer and Acceptance submittal to the U.S. government.”
Hvizd said after South Korea makes its decision asking the Defense Department to start a Foreign Military Sale is the “only step left” before formalizing a contract and starting production.
South Korea is accepting offers to upgrade its F-16 fleet with modern Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radars, replacing legacy mechanically-scanned radars. Raytheon is proposing its Raytheon Advanced Combat Radar (RACR) while Northrop Grumman is proposing its Scalable Agile Beam Radar (SABR). F-16s are manufactured by Lockheed Martin [LMT].
Ken Murphy, Raytheon senior manager of F-16 business development, said he expects South Korea to have Initial Operation Capability (IOC) by 2015 or 2016.
Hvizd said the difference between AESA radars and mechanically-scanned radars is that AESA radars do the work for the pilot. With mechanically-scanned radars, you had to maneuver both the plane and radar together to track your target and then decide what to do about it while maneuvering the electronics.
“So you take all that away, now the pilot has a clear situational picture of what’s going on in front of him and what’s going on the ground and he can decide what to do as opposed to ‘How do I actually steer the electronics around,’” Hvizd said. “That’s really the difference: The machine now takes care of that and allows the pilot to do what he’s best at and that’s prosecuting the target in front of him and targets in his field of regard.”
RACR’s advantages also include being designed as a “drop-in” upgrade to F-16s and Boeing’s [BA] legacy F/A-18 to minimize aircraft modification time and aircrew transition training, the company said in a statement.
Northrop Grumman’s SABR is a full-performance, fire control AESA radar designed for retro fit in current F-16s and other legacy fighter, attack and training aircraft. Compared to mechanically scanned array radars, SABR provides increased performance, multi-functionality and greater reliability inherent in AESA radars, the company said in a statement.
Tim Winter, vice president of Northrop Grumman’s global sensor solutions business unit, said recently in an emailed statement the company has effectively leveraged the existing configuration of the F-35 and F-16 Block 60 radars to produce a state-of-the-art, plug-and-play, flight line installation-capable SABR for South Korea and the Air Force.
“SABR’s superior air-to-air and air-to-ground mission performance and ability to effectively track widespread targets has already been validated in numerous flight demonstrations,” Winter said.