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IVEWS completes flight testing on USAF F-16
Northrop Grumman’s IVEWS (Integrated Viper Electronic Warfare Suite) has successfully completed Operational Assessment flight testing on US Air Force (USAF) F-16 aircraft, demonstrating its effectiveness against advanced radar-guided threats. This accomplishment represents an important milestone in the maturation of the system and provides an option for the Air Force to go to production and fielding.
- During testing, IVEWS was subjected to highly accurate representations of complex, modern radio frequency (RF) threats in operationally relevant environments, verifying the results seen during rigorous laboratory, chamber and early flight testing.
- The system detected, identified and countered the full range of radar threats, providing complete RF protection for operationally representative missions and enhanced situational awareness of the battlespace.
- IVEWS and Northrop Grumman’s SABR radar demonstrated digital interoperability. By communicating on a pulse-by-pulse basis, the two systems ensure that neither one will reduce the performance of the other, allowing for simultaneous electronic warfare and targeting capabilities.
Complex and fully integrated electronic warfare system
Lt. Col. Christopher B. James, USAF, Deputy Division Chief, F-16 USAF Programs: “Our USAF F-16 System Program Office, in collaboration with our Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Eglin’s OFP/CTF and Terma partners, has successfully completed the IVEWS Operational Assessment with excellent results. The team conducted more than 70 flights and 100-plus flying hours in a seven-month timeframe. Not only did the system perform well, but it also worked during its first flight on two aircraft, which is unprecedented for a complex and fully integrated electronic warfare system. It has earned the slogan, ‘IVEWS, works first time, every time.’”
James Conroy, vice president, navigation, targeting and survivability, Northrop Grumman, said in a company news release: “These successful flight tests showed the maturity and readiness of IVEWS to protect the F-16 fleet against the most advanced radio frequency threats – modernizing the Viper with the electronic warfare capabilities it needs to remain lethal and survivable for years to come.”
IVEWS installed on two F-16 Block 50s
Flight testing took place at Eglin AFB, Florida, and Nellis AFB, Nevada, as part of the Operational Assessment of the system. IVEWS is installed on two F-16 Block 50 aircraft and has demonstrated stable performance across more than 70 sorties, covering a range of environmental conditions and typical mission scenarios including air-to-air, air-to-ground and mixed threat engagements. While laboratory and chamber threat simulations provide opportunities to test technical capabilities, flight testing on customer aircraft remains the gold standard for verifying system performance under combat-representative conditions.
Northrop Grumman’s IVEWS improves aircraft survivability in highly contested and congested electromagnetic spectrum environments, maintaining relevance for fourth generation platforms in the future fight. Fully digital and founded on open systems design principles, the ultra-wideband architecture in IVEWS provides extended frequency coverage including millimeter wave, 360-degree spatial coverage and operationally relevant geolocation. IVEWS is one example of how Northrop Grumman is helping its customers worldwide modernize to meet the challenge of evolving threats.
The Fighting Falcon
The F-16 Fighting Falcon is a compact, multi-role fighter aircraft. It is highly maneuverable and has proven itself in air-to-air combat and air-to-surface attack. It provides a relatively low-cost, high-performance weapon system for the United States and allied nations.
In an air combat role, the F-16’s maneuverability and combat radius (distance it can fly to enter air combat, stay, fight and return) exceed that of all potential threat fighter aircraft. It can locate targets in all weather conditions and detect low flying aircraft in radar ground clutter. In an air-to-surface role, the F-16 can fly more than 500 miles (860 kilometers), deliver its weapons with superior accuracy, defend itself against enemy aircraft, and return to its starting point. An all-weather capability allows it to accurately deliver ordnance during non-visual bombing conditions.
The USAF is the single largest operator of F-16s, with well over 2,000 airframes being delivered. According to F-16.net, the service was the driving force behind the Light-weight fighter competition, and behind most of the modification and improvements of the F-16. The USAF also has (or has had) most versions and blocks in its inventory, from the YF-16 protoypes over the block 1 to the block 52, the notable exceptions being the recently developed Block 52+ and block 60 models and “upgrade” versions such as the MLU.
Photo credit: U.S. Air Force
