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Air Force upgrades F-16 radar

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An F-16 Fighting Falcon from the 314th Fighter Squadron taxis toward its new home in the hangars at Holloman Air Force base, N.M., June 16, 2015. The 308th Fighter Squadron and their F-16s have moved their base of operations to Holloman as a tenant unit, along with other squadrons from the 54th Fighter Group. The 54th Fighter Group will be activating the 314th Fighter Squadron with the 12 F-16s that has been transferred to Holloman. In March of 2014, the 54th Fighter Group was activated at Holloman, The 314th FS is the second squadron to transfer from Luke. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Chase Cannon/Released)

The Air Force has selected Northrop Grumman’s APG-83 Scalable Agile Beam Radar as its upgrade for the active electronically scanned array radars on National Guard F-16 fighter jets.

Northrop Grumman will upgrade 72 U.S. Air National Guard F-16s “to meet a U.S. Northern Command Joint Emergent Operational Need for homeland defense,” according to a company news release.

The APG-83 SABR has greater bandwidth speed and agility, Northrop Grumman said. “In addition, the radar can operate in hostile electronic environments and features all-weather, high-resolution synthetic aperture radar mapping, which presents the pilot with a large surface image enabling precision target identification and strike,” the company added.

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Michael Peck is a correspondent for Defense News and a columnist for the Center for European Policy Analysis. He holds an M.A. in political science from Rutgers University. Find him at theuncommondefense.com. His email is mikedefense1@gmail.com.