LONGBOW LLC Receives $181 Million for Apache LONGBOW Block III Radar and Data Link Systems

ORLANDO, Fla. – The LONGBOW Lim­it­ed Lia­bil­i­ty Com­pa­ny, a joint ven­ture of Lock­heed Mar­tin (NYSE:LMT) and Northrop Grum­man Cor­po­ra­tion (NYSE:NOC), received a $181 mil­lion con­tract from the U.S. Army for AH-64D Apache Block III LONGBOW sys­tems.

The con­tract includes the first inter­na­tion­al pur­chase of the Block III LONGBOW Fire Con­trol Radar (FCR) by Tai­wan, which will receive 15 Block III LONGBOW FCR systems. 

LONGBOW LLC will also pro­duce 18 Radar Elec­tron­ic Units (REU), 14 Unmanned Aer­i­al Sys­tem Tac­ti­cal Com­mon Data Link Assem­bly (UTA) sys­tems and spares to equip the U.S. Army’s new fleet of Block III Apaches. 

“The Army’s invest­ment in the FCR enhance­ments with the Block III Fire Con­trol Radar REU illus­trates our com­mit­ment to face the chal­lenges of the ever-adapt­ing threats around the world,” said Col. Shane Open­shaw, U.S. Army project man­ag­er for Apache Heli­copters. “The Long­bow Apache is the world’s pre­mier attack heli­copter, and the FCR is one of the key ele­ments that make it that way.” 

For more than a decade, the LONGBOW FCR has pro­vid­ed Apache air­crews with tar­get detec­tion, loca­tion, clas­si­fi­ca­tion and pri­or­i­ti­za­tion. In all weath­er, over mul­ti­ple ter­rains and through any bat­tle­field obscu­rant, the radar allows auto­mat­ic and rapid mul­ti-tar­get engage­ment. The LONGBOW FCR inte­grates with the LONGBOW HELLFIRE mis­sile, enhanc­ing the Apache’s lethal­i­ty four­fold and increas­ing sur­viv­abil­i­ty sevenfold. 

The new LONGBOW Block III FCR REU pro­vides reduced size, weight, main­te­nance and pow­er require­ments of the radar sys­tem. The LONGBOW Block III UTA pro­vides a two-way, high-band­width data link, enabling air­crews to con­trol Unmanned Air­craft Sys­tems’ (UAS) flight path, sen­sors and lasers at long ranges. The sys­tem also pro­vides the abil­i­ty to receive high-qual­i­ty UAS imagery on displays. 

Prime mis­sion equip­ment and spares pro­duc­tion, as well as engi­neer­ing ser­vices and inte­grat­ed logis­tics, will be per­formed at Lock­heed Mar­tin facil­i­ties in Ocala and Orlan­do, Fla., and Northrop Grum­man facil­i­ties in Bal­ti­more, Md. Deliv­er­ies will begin in fall 2011. The con­tract includes options to extend the peri­od of per­for­mance from 2015 to 2017. 

Northrop Grum­man is a lead­ing glob­al secu­ri­ty com­pa­ny pro­vid­ing inno­v­a­tive sys­tems, prod­ucts and solu­tions in aero­space, elec­tron­ics, infor­ma­tion sys­tems, and tech­ni­cal ser­vices to gov­ern­ment and com­mer­cial cus­tomers worldwide. 

Head­quar­tered in Bethes­da, Md., Lock­heed Mar­tin is a glob­al secu­ri­ty com­pa­ny that employs about 126,000 peo­ple world­wide and is prin­ci­pal­ly engaged in the research, design, devel­op­ment, man­u­fac­ture, inte­gra­tion and sus­tain­ment of advanced tech­nol­o­gy sys­tems, prod­ucts and ser­vices. The Corporation’s 2010 sales from con­tin­u­ing oper­a­tions were $45.8 billion. 

Lock­heed Mar­tin Media Con­tact: Melis­sa Hilliard, 407–356-5351;
email, melissa.hilliard@lmco.com

Northrop Grum­man Media Con­tact: Ellen Hamil­ton, 224–625-4693;
email, ellen.hamilton@ngc.com

Source:
Northrop Grumman 

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