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08 Mar 16. Fresh details of Saab’s GlobalEye surveillance aircraft emerge. Key Points:
• Saab has launched its GlobalEye Bombardier Global 6000 business jet-based ISR platform incorporating a new extended range version of the Erieye airborne radar
• Saab is offering three baseline configurations for GlobalEye covering the air, maritime and land domains and SIGINT
Additional details have emerged of Saab’s GlobalEye multirole surveillance aircraft concept launched at the Singapore Airshow 2016 in early February.
Speaking to IHS Jane’s at the IQPC Airborne ISR and C2 Battle Management conference in London, Saab’s Senior Director Airborne Surveillance Erik Winberg said the concept is based on a new surveillance aircraft ordered by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in November 2015. The USD1.27 billion deal calls for two Swing Role Surveillance Systems (SRSS) hosted on a Bombardier Global 6000 business jet and the upgrade of the service’s existing Saab 340-based systems to the same standard.
The concept is centred around the new Erieye ER (extended range) S-band active electronically scanned array (AESA) multi-mode radar that is claimed to have a detection range that has been improved by 70% over the previous generation model, which has a maximum stated range of 450 km. This has been achieved though the doubling of power output from the same power input, while also incorporating receiver and processing enhancements. Saab characterises this performance improvement as “reclaiming the detection distance” for small and future targets lost to developing stealth technologies.
The new radar is also able to function in heavy clutter and jamming conditions, has a high update rate and energy management for tracking priority targets and can detect challenging aircraft targets such as hovering helicopters using Doppler processing techniques. Aerial track identification is aided by IFF (Mode 5 or the customer’s national standard), ADS-B and uploaded flight plans.
In the maritime domain the Erieye ER, coupled with the Selex Galileo SeaSpray 7500E I-band (8 to 12.5 GHz) ventral radar in the GlobalEye application is capable of detecting ships out to the radar horizon at around 400 km and smaller contacts the size of jet skis and rigid hull inflatable boats (RHIBs) at very long range beyond the 100 n miles quoted by Saab for the previous Erieye radar. (Source: IHS Jane’s)
07 Mar 16. Lockheed prepping Advanced EOTS and Legion Pod for flight tests. Lockheed Martin is assembling a prototype of its “advanced” electro-optical targeting system (EOTS) that is proposed to replace the baseline version on the F-35 fleet.
The company will complete design and construction of the next evolution of the air-to-air and air-to-ground targeting device this year for carriage on a surrogate Sabreliner test aircraft.
Separately, Lockheed will fly the Legion infrared search-and-track (IRST) pod on a Boeing F-15C in the coming months as the US Air Force looks to fill a long-standing “capability gap” related to passive infrared detection of airborne threats.
Using the same IRST21 infrared receiver that is currently in low-rate initial production for the US Navy’s F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fleet, the Legion pod has already been carried on an F-16, and will go up against Northrop Grumman’s OpenPod IRST system in a future competition.
Regarding “Advanced EOTS”, Lockheed director of business development for missiles and fire control Don Bolling says the proposed multispectral sensor will allow Lightning II operators to detect air and ground targets with greater clarity and at longer ranges, via short-wave infrared, high-definition television, infrared marker and image detector resolution enhancements. Lockheed recently delivered the 200th EOTS sensor, which has been outpaced technologically by Lockheed’s Sniper and Northro