Lockheed Martin [LMT] created the new F-16V fighter jet variant because its customer feedback asked for upgrades in the plane, according to a company executive.
Bill McHenry, Lockheed Martin’s director of F-16 business development, said only a few “tweaks” were necessary, not major changes.
“There is feedback into the system through our (U.S.) Air Force and international customers of things that work well or needed a little tweaking,” McHenry told Defense Daily in an interview. “Most of these improvements are as a result of this feedback.”
These improvements include upgrading the radar from a mechanically-scanned radar to an active electronically-scanned array (AESA) radar, upgrading the mission computer and the cockpit video displays. McHenry said the big advantage of an AESA radar is that it allows the pilot to search for both air and ground targets simultaneously, while a mechanically-scanned radar only allows you to do one at a time. He also said an AESA radar is an upgrade in speed, saying it can scan “very, very quickly,” while a mechanically-scanned radar can only move at a certain rate, “maybe every few seconds.”
McHenry also said because an AESA radar processes faster, it can also process smaller shapes.
“It can detect shapes a lot better than a mechanically-scanned radar,” he said. “You can identify a shape, whether a building or a truck. The processing of the information is much better. Better situational awareness.”
Another key upgrade of the V variant is video displays in the cockpit. McHenry said the V will have a large, six-by-eight inch display surrounded by a couple four- or five-inch colored displays.
“What that does is (give it) the ability to display an awful lot of information in a very large format,” McHenry said. “What we’re looking for is the ability to communicate to the pilot quickly.”
A third upgrade to the V variant is upgrading the plane’s mission computers.
“Every couple years you have to kind of get a bigger hard drive and a faster processor to process the exponential increase in data that we all are consumed with,” McHenry said, comparing the fighter with improvements to personal computers. “The natural environment that we all live in, the fighter community is not much different.”
McHenry also said the upgrades can either be built into new F-16Vs or into existing versions of the fighter.
He said the company sold 30 F-16s last year and that it will continue to make the plane when it begins production on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
“We will continue to make both,” McHenry said. “We see a market for the airplane through the end of this decade.”
Lockheed Martin debuted the F-16V on Feb. 15 at the Singapore Airshow.