NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.—L3Harris Technologies said that its site in Clifton, N.J., several weeks ago began the build of 166 AN/ALQ-254(V)1 Viper Shield all-digital electronic warfare (EW) suites for F-16 fighters in six countries under a total Viper Shield backlog of $1 billion.
During the Air and Space Forces Association’s annual Air, Space and Cyber conference here, Jennifer Lewis, the head of L3Harris’ airborne combat systems business, told reporters that L3Harris is in talks with other countries to address what it believes is an additional $1.5 billion in demand.
The Viper Shield’s small 3U form factor enables installation of the system on multiple F-16 configurations–either within the aircraft or on an external pod, the company said.
“This flexible approach uses software-defined technology to enhance the offensive and defensive capabilities of F-16 Block 70/72 aircraft,” according to L3Harris. “By design, Viper Shield is engineered to allow for future capability upgrades, ensuring it can counter evolving threats.”
While U.S. post-9/11 military involvements have taken advantage of U.S. air dominance and EW was a lower priority, “I believe that is changing with what we’re seeing in the current conflicts and even what you’re hearing from the government,” Lewis said. “Electronic warfare really is a cross-cutting enabler across all the [Air Force] operational imperatives.”
For U.S. F-16s, the Air Force in March 2022 chose Northrop Grumman’s ultra-wideband architecture AN/ALQ-257 Integrated Viper Electronic Warfare Suite (IVEWS), but L3Harris has said that it believes Viper Shield could one day go on U.S. F-16s.
Northrop Grumman said that IVEWS recently finished Air Force testing in the service’s Joint Preflight Integration of Munitions and Electronic Sensors (J-PRIMES) facility at Eglin AFB, Fla.
“During a series of rigorous tests, AN/ALQ-257 IVEWS was subjected to accurate representations of complex radio frequency spectrum threats in the J-PRIMES anechoic chamber,” Northrop Grumman said. “The system demonstrated the ability to detect, identify and counter advanced radio frequency threats while operating safely with other F-16 systems. The successful completion of this regimen allows AN/ALQ-257 IVEWS to begin flight testing on Air Force F-16 aircraft.”
In a conference interview, James Conroy, the vice president of Northrop Grumman’s electronic warfare and targeting business, said that IVEWS “was designed, from the ground up, with advanced threats in mind.”
“We know the RF [radio frequency] threats are changing,” he said. “We know how they’ve been evolving over time. They’ve moved where they are in the frequency. They’ve gone higher and lower in frequency. This system was designed to cover that whole bandwidth so you’re not gonna have them running away from you and hiding in a different part of the frequency…We can stare over a large portion of the electromagnetic spectrum.”