South Korea is looking at upgrading many of its KF-16C/D fighters with Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radars as it seeks to maintain a qualitative edge on the Korean Peninsula, Aviation Week & Space Technology reports.
Both Raytheon and Northrop Grumman have ‘drop in’ AESA offerings in the form of Raytheon Advanced Combat Radar (RACR) and the Scalable Agile Beam Radar (SABR) respectively, two radars which have been developed specifically for the upgrade market for F-16s and F/A-18s. Despite other offerings being available from France and Israel, a non-US radar is not expected to feature.
South Korea’s new F-15K strike fighters have been fitted for but not yet with the full APG-63(V)3 AESA radar, and currently carry the non AESA (V)2’s conventional antenna with the (V)3’s back end.
