Northrop Grumman demonstrated its Scalable Agile Beam Radar (SABR) on a F-16 at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., in support of the Air Force’s F-16 Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) feasibility study. SABR is an AESA radar designed for retrofit in current F-16s and other legacy fighter, attack and training aircraft, according to Northrop Grumman.
"This officially marks the first time a retrofit AESA has ever flown in a legacy F-16," said Arlene Camp, director of Advanced F-16 Radar Programs at Northrop Grumman’s Electronic Systems sector. "This demonstration validated our goal of developing an AESA that can be easily installed on the flight line and integrated with existing power and cooling provisions of currently fielded F-16s. … With regard to installed performance, SABR’s air-to-air and air-to-ground detection and tracking and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) mapping performance met or exceeded our predictions."