Tim Ripley

The gloves came off in the $1.1 billion UK ASTOR contest yesterday, with Britain's Racal accusing its American rivals - Raytheon and Northrop Grumman - of trying to maintain a monopoly in the global ground radar surveillance market.

"Others wish this radar [on the ASTOR airborne ground surveillance system] not to go elsewhere but to the US," says John Palmer, Racal Radar Defence Systems senior surveillance consultant. "I expect every trick to be used to overturn a British solution.

"We are in for a fairly hectic few months - we've got a battle ahead and I am looking forward to it."

The competition "-will have to go somewhat to beat us," says Palmer. "On this programme we have not compromised. We are fully compliant with the technical solution." Racal executives revealed at Farnborough yesterday that they are offering an active electronically scanned antenna as the centrepiece of their ASTOR bid for which Racal is teamed with systems integrator Lockheed Martin and airframe provider Gulfstream.

Marketing manager Alan Gordon describes their bid as a "-UK radar to meet a UK requirement.

Requirement

"It is fully compliant with the UK's requirement, is a high technology solution, provides real jobs for the UK, retains and grows the UK technology base and has real opportunities for growth."

Palmer says the Ministry of Defence's Equipment Approval Committee was likely to get the ASTOR paperwork in January, with a contract being awarded in April or May at the latest. "Our radar is not a comprise or hybrid - it is not someone else's radar mocked-up," says Palmer. "It does not need an [upgrade] before it goes into production."

Project executive Peter Andrews says ASTOR needed a radar specifically designed for the UK requirement.

"We did not want to associate our selves with an existing system," he says. "We wanted to build something specifically for ASTOR. It is designed from today's 'now technology' and does not depend of future technologies - it has the right balance between risk and performance."

Palmer says there is little prospect of the MoD 'mixing and matching' parts of the three alternative bids into a single programme. "It sounds great but in practical terms mass changes are not on."

Source: Flight Daily News