The US Department of Defense (DoD) will evaluate 17 new foreign military items during fiscal year 2001 for possible procurement, while continuing to test a further 20 foreign systems.
The foreign comparative testing (FCT) programme was developed to reduce the DoD's acquisition cycle, cut research and development spending by purchasing military equipment from allied nations to improve standardisation and interoperability.
The US Army will test signals intelligence systems made by the UK's Thomson Racal Defence and Israel's Tadiran designed to detect and locate conventional and low probability-of-intercept radios.
AUS Air Force (USAF) FCT will evaluate a new recorder/replay system developed by France's Enertec to support flight testing at the Air Force Flight Test Center. The French unit is smaller, has more storage capacity and is more reliable than that currently in use.
The USAF needs to have infrared/ultraviolet missile warning systems on combat aircraft triggered during flight training, and Elettronica UK has developed a system that simulates IR/UV rocket motor signatures from hand-held heat-seeking surface-to-air missiles.
Source: Flight International
