First production contract for 4 airborne units is worth $171 million.
Lockheed Martin's newest airborne early warning radar unit, the AN/APY-9, is shown mounted on Northrop Grumman's E-2D Advanced Hawkeye aircraft. Lockheed Martin developed the system at its plant in the town of Salina. Syracuse, NY - After eight years of development, the first of Lockheed Martin’s newest airborne early warning radar systems — developed and built in Salina — was delivered last week to the Navy in Norfolk, Va.
The delivery introduces a new generation of technology that Lockheed expects will evolve for the next 20 years, said Doug Reep, director of Lockheed’s Airborne Early Warning Radar unit in Salina.
Lockheed’s first production contract for four radar units is worth $171 million. The Navy plans to buy at least 75 airborne early warning radar systems. More airborne radar systems are expected to be sold to foreign countries through the Navy, Reep said.
The radar, called the AN/APY-9, is mounted on a Northrop Grumman E-2D Hawkeye aircraft. The aircraft is usually flown from aircraft carriers. The radar’s most distinguishing visual feature is a 24-foot dome above the wings.
Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems is the prime contractor for the system. With Lockheed’s radar, the Hawkeye can precisely detect small airborne objects at great distances, and can serve as an airborne air traffic control center, communicating between ships, ground forces and flying aircraft, Reep said. Lockheed engineers are exploring the potential for Hawkeye operators to also control unmanned aerial vehicles from the air, Reep said.
The APY-9 replaces an earlier Lockheed radar system developed in the 1980s that was also flown on a Northrop Grumman plane, the E-2C Hawkeye. That system was primarily designed for use at sea. While the new plane, the E-2D, looks like the old one, the aircraft and its radar capabilities are different, Reep said.
In Lockheed’s newest airborne radar unit, solid state technology replaces vacuum tubes. Advanced signal processing enables the new radar to get clear readings from urban environments that have lots of electronic interference, or “clutter” — things like cell phone and television signals.
“We’ll be able to handle situations in ways that weren’t possible,” Reep said.
At the Salina Lockheed plant, which employs 2,400, the airborne early warning radar unit employs about 150. Except for circuit board Lockheed manufactures in Owego, N.Y., and in Clearwater, Fla., all work on the radar systems is done at the Salina plant.
That unit of the plant has already begun transitioning from engineering to production. At full production, Lockheed plans to build eight radar units a year.
With the Navy’s plan to buy at least 75 units, Reep said, he expects that part of Lockheed’s radar business to provide steady jobs for a long while.
Contact Dave Tobin at dtobin@syracuse.com or 470-3277.