On Tuesday, April 28, 2026, the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (AFLCMC) of the U.S. Air Force Materiel Command at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, announced that the previous day, on behalf of the Department of Defense, it had signed a framework agreement with a maximum value of 488,000,000 USD with Northrop Grumman Systems Corp., part of Northrop Grumman Corporation, for technical support of the radar systems of Lockheed Martin F-16 Fighting Falcon multirole aircraft for 21 export users, including Poland.
Photo: Michał Adamowski, MILMAG
The indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract covers support for the F-16 System Program Office through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program, as well as support for the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy, the latter of which uses 33 F-16A/B aircraft for training.
The contract covers engineering and technical support for AN/APG-66 and AN/APG-68 series F-16 radar systems.
The work will be performed at Northrop Grumman Systems Corp.’s facilities in Linthicum Heights, Maryland, and is expected to be completed by March 31, 2036. The contract covers deliveries to FMS program customers: Bahrain, Belgium, Chile, Denmark, Egypt, Greece, Indonesia, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, the Republic of Korea, Morocco, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Thailand, and Turkey, although Denmark, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and Norway have already withdrawn or are in the process of withdrawing their aircraft. The contract was awarded on a sole-source basis. The initial funds obligated come from the FY 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) defense budget, from U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy funds, in the amount of 2,644,922 USD.
The Polish Air Force currently operates 47 F-16C/D Block 52+ Advanced multirole aircraft, which are fitted with AN/APG-68(V)9 radars. However, as part of their gradual modernization to the F-16V Viper standard, these radars will be replaced by AN/APG-83 SABR (Scalable Agile Beam Radar) units with active electronically scanned array (AESA) antennas.
The AN/APG-68(V)9 is the latest and most advanced version of the AN/APG-68 family of onboard radars, originally developed by Westinghouse. It is a multifunction pulse-Doppler radar designed for export F-16C/D Block 50/52+ aircraft.
It offers an approximately 30–33% greater range, around 85 km, supports Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) mode, enabling high-resolution terrain mapping for attacking ground targets in all weather conditions, improved simultaneous multi-target tracking in Search-While-Track mode, up to four targets instead of two, a larger search volume, better resistance to jamming, and fewer false alarms. It features a modern open architecture, including a new Common Radar Processor (CoRP), Modular Receiver/Exciter (MoRE), and Medium Duty Transmitter, as well as higher reliability, with an MTBF of around 390 hours, and lower operating costs, by as much as 25–45%.
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