LONDON—Northrop Grumman is getting ready for flight trials of the new F-16 electronic warfare suite it is hoping to sell to users of the fighter abroad and, eventually, to the U.S. Air Force (USAF).
The company recently completed Joint Preflight Integration of Munitions and Electronic Systems (J-Primes) testing of its Integrated Viper EW Suite (IVEWS), incorporated on an F-16 in an anechoic chamber. The successful completion of the trials to assess the system’s performance in a controlled setting opens the door to the operational assessment, said Susan Hawkins, Northrop Grumman’s director of strategy and mission solutions.
The system is now also being installed on a second F-16 before IVEWS undergoes several months of operational assessment. The final report on that effort is due by year-end, she said.
IVEWS has undergone a series of other trials already, including Laboratory Intelligence Validated Emulator testing. That closed-loop assessment involved exposing the system to emulated threats to gauge its performance.
In 2022, USAF awarded Northrop Grumman a contract to develop IVEWS. The system is designed to provide an improved digital radar-warning receiver, the ALR-39E(V)2, and active jamming capability in an internal suite designed to keep the F-16 viable into the 2040s.
IVEWS has been optimized to allow the F-16 to best operate its APG-83 active, electronically scanned array radar and the self-protection system together. The equipment has been integrated at a pulse level to assure no interference and avoid having to constrain either system’s performance, Hawkins said. Those features are critical with more sophisticated, multi-mode and spectrum-level jumping threats available. The system also has hardware provisions for further growth, she added.
The company is in talks with Turkey to provide the system for its new F-16 Blk. 70s, as well as to upgrade older versions of the fighter the country operates, Hawkins said. The company also is in conversations with other NATO countries to upgrade their existing F-16s, she said.
L3Harris offers a competing self-protection suite for the F-16.
Although USAF initiated the program to upgrade existing F-16s, the future of IVEWS with that customer is uncertain. The Air Force in 2023 wanted to pull funding from the program to divert it on next-generation aircraft, though enjoyed support in Congress. Hawkins said the system, once it completes its operational assessment, will be available for the Air Force.
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