Executives with L3Harris Technologies said the company will hit a development milestone for its Viper Shield electronic warfare package this month, with production on track for 2025. L3Harris is constructing Viper Shield, a collection of digital protections and countermeasures, for fitting aboard Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70/72 jets sold to foreign militaries. More than a dozen countries planned to fly the variants when the company was first tapped for the work. The soon-to-come milestone, known as “drop 3,” signifies initial radar warning receiver capability, meaning the system can detect emissions of adversarial radar.
“Winning in the next fight isn’t just about what you can do platform by platform. It’s being able to harness all of that data that’s out there, and being able to do that in real time, or near-real time,” Jen Lewis, president for advanced combat systems at L3Harris, told C4ISRNET on the sidelines of the Association of Old Crows conference in Maryland. The company this year said Viper Shield passed a separate review involving Lockheed and the Air Force. “I think we’re really ahead of the field here, in terms of thinking about how you get after the electromagnetic spectrum operations and data problem,” Lewis added.
Aircraft must navigate environments teeming with radars, missiles and other threats. Penetrating — or slipping past — those defenses is critical. Both Russia and China have constructed anti-access and area-denial infrastructure to keep at bay forces and weapons that could otherwise overwhelm. The U.S. Department of Defense is prioritizing sophisticated EW tools as it moves away from smaller counterinsurgency fighting in the Greater Middle East and prepares for larger-scale, higher-tech battles envisioned for the future.
#F16
#EW
#ViperShield
Image: The first Royal Bahraini Air Force F-16 Block 70 aircraft lands at Edwards Air Force Base in California in March 2023. (USAF)
Stealth, Camouflage & Deception Dept.| Project Manager(R&D) | Technical Assistant | Project Coordinator| M.Sc Applied Physics | Material science and Nanotech field | Open to PhD positions
11moSharing the same features is not a novel observation. Need more insight specifically. Thanks.