Northrop Grumman is offering to replace the obsolete radar on the US Air Force’s (USAF’s) Boeing B-52H Strafortress strategic bombers with its latest AN/APG-83 active electronically scanned array (AESA) system.
The USAF is looking for a new radar to replace the obsolete systems on its 76 B-52H bombers. (US Air Force)
The USAF is looking at several options to satisfy its Radar Modernization Program (RMP) to replace the B-52’s now obsolete Northrop Grumman AN/APQ-166 mechanically-scanned radar.
Speaking previously to Jane’s a senior USAF official noted, “It’s an old radar. It doesn’t have the reliability we’d like to have, and if you're flying long-duration missions and you get to a two-digit mean time between failure, it means you're flying around with a broken radar a lot.”
The service launched the RMP programme for its 76 aircraft bomber fleet in February 2016 (since then one aircraft has crashed, but has been replaced by one returned from storage), with a competition set to be launched this year.
As the incumbent supplier the company has high hopes for its AN/APG-83 system, which is also known as the Scalable Agile Beam Radar (SABR). Further to its B-52H ambitions for the AN/APG-83, Northrop Grumman noted its intent to offer the radar as a retrofit for the USAF’s Rockwell B-1B Lancer bomber and the US Marine Corps’ Boeing F/A-18A-D Hornet combat aircraft also.
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