F-16 prime contractor Lockheed Martin selected Northrop Grumman’s Scalable Agile Beam Radar for retrofit on a portion of the Air Force’s F-16 fleet, announced Northrop Grumman on Wednesday. SABR, a multifunction airborne fire control radar based on active electronically scanned array technology, beat out the Raytheon Advanced Combat Radar, the AESA system that Raytheon offered in this competition. “The F-16 has been a frontline fighter for the Air Force for more than 30 years, and SABR will keep it there for decades to come,” said Joseph Ensor, who heads Northrop Grumman’s intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance and targeting systems division. “SABR will provide F-16s unprecedented operational capability, greater reliability, and viability in threat environments beyond 2025,” he said in the company’s July 31 release. The Air Force intends to modernize the radars on some 300 F-16 Block 40 and Bock 50 airplanes as part of the F-16 Combat Avionics Programmed Extension Suite program. Lockheed Martin oversees this work. In addition to the US F-16s, Lockheed Martin chose SABR as the radar for the upgrade of Taiwan’s F-16 fighters, states the release.
The Air Force and Boeing agreed to a nearly $2.4 billion contract for a new lot of KC-46 aerial tankers on Nov. 21. The deal, announced by the Pentagon, is for 15 new aircraft in Lot 11 at a cost of $2.389 billion—some $159 million per tail.