Leonardo partners with RAF for third-generation countermeasures

Leonardo is to work with the UK Royal Air Force to jointly invest in a programme to develop a third-generation electronic countermeasures system for deployment on the RAF fighter fleet.

The effort is being conducted by the service's new rapid capability office, with Leonardo the first company to sign up as a partner.

It will base the new system on its existing BriteCloud expendable active decoys, Leonardo says. However, it provides no details on the development timeline or the technology to be used.

Following a series of integration and launch tests using one of its Panavia Tornado GR4 aircraft in March 2016, the RAF acquired a number of BriteCloud decoys.

It is currently formulating its concept of operations for their use, Leonardo says.

Source: FlightGlobal.com