Northrop Grumman believes USAF’s cuts to its legacy fighter force and the gap before new fighters come on line will create a need to upgrade remaining legacy fighters to sustain them for the air sovereignty alert and destruction of enemy air defenses missions—a requirement the company expects to fill with its Scalable Active Beam Array Radar on the F-16. Northrop’s director of advanced F-16 radar programs, Arlene Camp, told reporters Monday at AFA’s Air and Space Conference that the market for upgraded active electronically scanned array radars is “considerable.” She expects to conduct a flight test employing the company-developed SABR on a Block 50 F-16 in November at Edwards AFB, Calif. Continue
Fixing the Air Force’s chronic combat pilot shortage will require more aircraft in the fleet, more flying hours to squadron operations, and retaining more pilots within Reserve components, according to a new paper from AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.