Alliant Techsystems has received a $222.6 million, 63-month US Navy contract for system development and demonstration of the AGM-88E AARGM advanced anti-radiation guided missile, a HARM high-speed anti-radiation missile retrofitted with satellite/inertial navigation, improved passive radar seeker and active millimetre-wave radar terminal seeker. BAE Systems is to provide ALQ-196 low- band jammers for US Air Force special operations Lockheed Martin MC-130Hs and AC-130Us under a contract potentially worth $80 million. BAE is already developing high-power fibre-optic towed decoys for MC-130E/Hs and AC-130H/Us, each system with up to eight retrievable decoys, under a contract valued at more than $100 million. The US Air Force is to begin upgrading F-16 Block 40/42s under Phase III of the Common Configuration Implementation Programme (CCIP), after exercising an option with Lockheed Martin for the first 22 kits, worth $26.6 million. Follow-on options cover almost 400 Block 40/42s. USAF F-16 Block 50/52s are being upgraded under CCIP Phase II. Northrop Grumman is to supply 10 new Litening AT pods and upgrade 47 Litening ER pods for US Marine Corps Boeing AV-8Bs under a $16.3 million contract. The AT upgrade adds multi-target cueing and target co-ordinate generation. MTC Technologies is to upgrade US Air Force special operations Sikorsky MH-53J Pave Low IIIs to MH-53M standard, improving communications, defensive systems and situation awareness under a $47.7 million contract, with DRS providing electronics and Crestview Aerospace performing installations. MTC is developing an automatic flight control system in the MH-53M. Boeing has picked ACSS's MASS traffic-surveillance/rendezvous/station-keeping system and Mode S/IFF transponder for the 767 tanker/transport. IMP Aerospace is to install new data management systems in Canadian Forces Lockheed CP-140 Auroras under a C$30 million ($22 million) deal from General Dynamics Canada.
Source: Flight International
