Northrop Grumman AN/APG-83 SABR Radar Achieves Initial Installation Milestone for Air National Guard F-16s

Northrop Grumman’s APG-83 radar being installed in an Air National Guard’s F-16 at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland.

The U.S. Air Force has completed installation of Northrop Grumman Corporation’s AN/APG-83 SABR radars on Air National Guard F-16s at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, to meet a U.S. Northern Command Joint Emergent Operational Need (JEON) for homeland defense. This milestone event completes delivery and installation of AN/APG-83 SABR Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radars in support of the USAF’s future initial operational capability declaration.

The radar upgrade of select Air National Guard F-16s extends the operational viability and reliability of that fleet while providing pilots with 5th-generation fighter radar capabilities to defend our nation’s airspace.

“The APG-83 radar provides unprecedented, active electronically scanned array (AESA) targeting and fire control capabilities to the F-16 fleet to ensure the superior effectiveness of the Air National Guard’s mission,” said Mark Rossi, director, SABR programs, Northrop Grumman. “APG-83 was specifically designed to maximize the performance of the F-16 with an affordable and scalable architecture, based upon advancements made through the introduction of Northrop Grumman’s APG-77 AESA for the F-22 Raptor and APG-81 AESA for the F-35 Lightning II.”

The greater bandwidth, speed and agility of the APG-83 enables the F-16 to detect, track and identify a greater number of targets faster and at longer ranges. In addition, it features all-weather, high-resolution synthetic aperture radar mapping to present the pilot with a large surface image for more precise target identification and strike compared to legacy systems.

The SABR program draws components from a mature industry supply base. More than 200 SABR systems have been built at Northrop Grumman’s radar assembly facility in Baltimore for U.S. and international customers.