Airborne Sensors (Page 2)

Latest in Airborne Sensors

The latest addition to General Atomics' MQ-9B medium-altitude long-endurance drone family is set to be an airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) configured version.
Airborne Radar

MQ-9B Airborne Early Warning Variant Could Fill Major Aerial Surveillance Gaps

By Thomas Newdick, Tyler Rogoway

Posted on Jun 17, 2025

More details have emerged about the problems the U.S. Navy is facing with its ill-starred podded Infrared Search And Track System, or IRST, an important capability planned for its F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fighters. The latest issues to be highlighted come after TWZ previously reported on delays caused by production quality issues with the system and a Pentagon assessment of “significant reliability problems during operational testing,” which emerged earlier this year.
Infrared Search And Track

New Details On F/A-18 Super Hornet’s Troubled IRST Pod

By Thomas Newdick

Posted on Jun 11, 2025

The U.S. Army says it is on schedule to retire the last of its turboprop-powered intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft by the end of this year.
Airborne Radar

Army To Retire All Of Its Turboprop Surveillance Planes By The End Of The Year

By Joseph Trevithick

Posted on May 29, 2025

Aircraft like the KJ-3000 help Chinese forces extend and support anti-access and area denial bubbles, including around the mainland, Taiwan, and the hotly contested South China Sea, as well as project power further afield.
Airborne Radar

China’s New KJ-3000 Airborne Early Warning Radar Jet Seen In Detail In New Image

By Thomas Newdick

Posted on May 27, 2025

F-35 was nearly downed by Houthi air defenses.
Infrared Search And Track

How The Houthis’ Rickety Air Defenses Threaten Even The F-35

By Joseph Trevithick, Tyler Rogoway

Updated on May 14, 2025

Raytheon has begun test flights of its compact PhantomStrike radar, which features an active electronically scanned array (AESA) and gallium nitride (GaN) technology. Most significantly, the manufacturer claims that PhantomStrike — which has already been ordered by Poland — brings all the benefits of an AESA antenna at a much lower price point than other radars in its class.
Airborne Radar

PhantomStrike Low-Cost Lightweight AESA Radar Flies For First Time

By Thomas Newdick

Posted on May 6, 2025

We have gotten our best look so far at China’s enigmatic KJ-700 airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft in service with the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). This latest addition to China’s rapidly proliferating family of AEW&C platforms remains somewhat mysterious, although multiple accounts suggest that it’s something of a unique ‘dual-mode’ aircraft, combining both airborne radar as well as an array of electro-optical and infrared sensors, likely intended to track stealthy and low-radar-signature targets.
Airborne Radar

China’s New KJ-700 Multi-Intelligence Radar Plane’s Interesting Features

By Thomas Newdick

Posted on Apr 14, 2025

We now have our first look at a new version of the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System II (APKWS II) 70mm guided rocket with an infrared seeker on top of the existing laser guidance capability.
Infrared Search And Track

Infrared Seeker For APKWS Guided 70mm Rockets Unveiled

By Joseph Trevithick

Posted on Apr 9, 2025

The U.S. Army has formally given the designation ME-11B to its forthcoming High Accuracy Detection and Exploitation System (HADES) intelligence-gathering aircraft.
Airborne Radar

ME-11B Official Designation Of Army’s New Intelligence Gathering Business Jets

By Joseph Trevithick

Posted on Mar 27, 2025

North Korea's shadowy airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft, based on a Russian Il-76 Candid cargo aircraft, has flown.
Airborne Radar

First North Korean Airborne Early Warning Jet Flies, Kim Shows Off Interior

By Joseph Trevithick

Posted on Mar 26, 2025

The U.S. Air Force office responsible for the B-52 Radar Modernization Program (RMP) is asking for new information about options for derivatives of off-the-shelf multi-mode radars that could go into the bombers.
Airborne Radar

B-52 Radar Upgrade Alternatives Info Sought By Air Force

By Joseph Trevithick

Posted on Mar 26, 2025

Pictures have appeared on social media showing work in Ukraine to turn a tethered aerostat – what is more colloquially called a balloon – into an elevated platform for launching kamikaze drones at incoming long-range one-way attack drones.
Airborne Sensors

Balloon-Launched Drone To Intercept Long Range Kamikaze Drones Emerges In Ukraine

By Joseph Trevithick

Posted on Mar 12, 2025

Thales Scorpion will equip the F-22s of the Hawaii ANG.
Airborne Sensors

F-22 Raptor Pilots Finally Getting Helmet Mounted Displays

By Tyler Rogoway

Updated on Mar 5, 2025

Lockheed Martin says it conducted six successful flight tests last year as part of work to add new capabilities on the F-22 Raptor stealth fighter.
Infrared Search And Track

F-22 Raptors Completed Six Test Flights For New Sensor Upgrades

By Joseph Trevithick

Posted on Mar 3, 2025

An apparently new photo published by Boeing shows one of its F-15 Advanced Eagle series fighters fitted with what looks like a previously unseen infrared search and track (IRST) sensor ahead of the cockpit.
Infrared Search And Track

F-15 Nose-Mounted Infrared Sensor Hinted At In New Boeing Photo

By Thomas Newdick

Updated on Feb 27, 2025

China’s Massive WZ-9 Divine Eagle Drone Now Operating From South China Sea Base
Airborne Radar

China’s Massive WZ-9 Divine Eagle Drone Now Operating From South China Sea Base

By Joseph Trevithick, Tyler Rogoway

Updated on Feb 25, 2025

APKWS infrared seeker in the works.
Infrared Search And Track

Infrared Seeker For APKWS Guided Rockets Is In The Works

By Tyler Rogoway

Posted on Feb 4, 2025

A U.S. Navy F/A-18F Super Hornet from the "Mighty Strikes" of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 94, flies over the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility while conducing a mission in support of Operation Inherent Resolve Oct. 2, 2020. VFA-94 is assigned to Carrier Air Wing 17, deployed aboard the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN 68), the flagship of Nimitz Carrier Strike Group.
Infrared Search And Track

F/A-18’s Infrared Search And Track System Has “Significant Reliability Problems”

By Thomas Newdick

Posted on Feb 3, 2025

F-22 Raptor To Get Distributed Infrared Search And Track System
Infrared Search And Track

F-22 Raptor To Get Distributed Infrared Search And Track System

By Joseph Trevithick

Posted on Jan 22, 2025

An F-15E on a flight line in San Antonio, Texas. The aircraft was recently upgraded with Eagle Passive/Active Warning and Survivability System, advanced electronic warfare system.
Airborne Radar

F-15E Strike Eagle With New EPAWSS Electronic Warfare Suite Heads To Frontline Unit

By Thomas Newdick

Posted on Jan 17, 2025

Hades ALEs
Airborne Sensors

Army Wants To Test Air-Launched Drones From A Global Express Business Jet

By Thomas Newdick

Posted on Jan 9, 2025

Pictures have emerged of what looks to be the first known example of a new Chinese airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft based on the four-engine Y-20 cargo plane commonly referred to as the KJ-3000.
Airborne Radar

China’s New Domestically Developed Y-20 Airborne Early Warning Jet Spotted

By Joseph Trevithick

Posted on Dec 27, 2024

The United Kingdom has taken an important step toward its Tempest next-generation fighter, with the start of a trials campaign for the Flight Test Aircraft (FTA), nicknamed Excalibur, which will serve as a flying laboratory for the new combat aircraft. Based on a Boeing 757 airliner, the FTA joins a growing band of dedicated trials aircraft that are being used to prove out technologies for current and future-generation fighter programs, also in the United States and China.
Airborne Radar

UK’s 757-Based ‘Excalibur’ Avionics Testbed For Tempest Future Fighter Emerges

By Thomas Newdick

Posted on Dec 9, 2024

An AH-64 helicopter hovers during a military drill July 28, 2003 in Yeounchun, South Korea. About 37,000 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea under a security alliance forged after the 1950-53 Korean War.
Airborne Radar

AH-64 Apache To Be Tested With Wing-Mounted AESA Radar

By Thomas Newdick

Posted on Nov 25, 2024

The U.S. Army has received the first of its new High Accuracy Detection and Exploitation System (HADES) aircraft, based on the Bombardier Global 6500 bizjet. Set to supersede a varied fleet of turboprop intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) platforms, HADES will fly higher, faster, and farther, and for longer periods, while carrying a bigger sensor payload.
Airborne Sensors

Army Gets Its First HADES Airborne Reconnaissance Jet

By Thomas Newdick

Posted on Nov 25, 2024

The U.S. Air Force is interested in adding an active electronically-scanned array (AESA) radar to its X-62A test jet. The radar is part of larger plans to acquire a new modular sensor suite for the uniquely modified F-16 specifically to help expand its ability to support advanced autonomy developments.
Airborne Sensors

New Radar Sought To Help X-62A Test Jet Take Next Leap In Autonomy Testing

By Joseph Trevithick

Posted on Sep 24, 2024

Future offensive electronic warfare
Airborne Radar

How EA-18G Growler’s Next Generation Jammer Actually Works And The Future Of Offensive Electronic Warfare

By Howard Altman

Updated on Sep 20, 2024

Adversary air company Top Aces' F-16 Vips, the only ones currently in the hands of a private operator, are now flying with podded infrared search and track (IRST) systems.
Infrared Search And Track

World’s Only Privately Owned F-16 Aggressors Get Infrared Search And Track Pods

By Joseph Trevithick

Posted on Sep 5, 2024

Alternatively known as the Y-9LG, the Y-8GX-12 is another ECM version based on the Y-8 Category III Platform. It was first identified in satellite imagery in late 2017. Surprisingly, considering its assumed role, the Y-8GX-12 has a ‘balance beam’ radar antenna above its fuselage, as found on the KJ-200 airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft. It is believed, however, that the radar aboard the Y-8GX-12 is instead used for long-range jamming, using its powerful electronically scanned radar beams to suppress enemy radar signals.
Airborne Radar

Our Best Look Yet At China’s New Standoff Electronic Warfare Plane

By Thomas Newdick

Posted on Aug 30, 2024

Japan reports that a Chinese Y-9Z surveillance aircraft violated its airspace in what it says is the first time such an incident has taken place.
Wide Area Aerial Surveillance

Chinese Electronic Intelligence Plane Makes Unprecedented Incursion Into Japanese Airspace

By Thomas Newdick

Posted on Aug 26, 2024

The U.S. Navy supercarrier USS Abraham Lincoln is heading toward the Middle East with an air wing that includes EA-18G Growlers equipped with new AN/ALQ-249(V)1 Next Generation Jammer-Mid Band (NGJ-MB) electronic warfare pods.
Airborne Sensors

EA-18G Growlers With New Jamming Pods Onboard Carrier Heading To Middle East

By Joseph Trevithick

Posted on Aug 6, 2024

Lockheed Martin has unveiled a new version of its Sniper targeting pod with added networking capabilities primarily designed to enable new connectivity between fourth-generation fighters and stealthy F-35s, but which also offers the ability to create localized 'kill webs' with various assets in the air and on the ground.
Targeting Pods

Networked Sniper Pod Will Let 4th-Generation Fighters Create ‘Kill Webs’ With F-35s

By Joseph Trevithick, Tyler Rogoway

Posted on Jul 26, 2024

The US Army has put out a new request for information for compact sensors for use on high-altitude balloons underscoring its broader vision for using those capabilities in the future.
Airborne Radar

Army’s High-Flying Balloon Surveillance Vision Grows With Call For New Radars, Other Sensors

By Joseph Trevithick

Posted on Jul 2, 2024

Testing at the Upside-Down Air Force, RADC
Airborne Radar

The Fascinating Story Of The USAF’s “Upside-Down Air Force”

By Oliver Parken

Posted on May 31, 2024

In a major new development for the Ukrainian military, Sweden is to donate it Saab 340 airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft equipped with Erieye radar. The aircraft is being provided as part of Sweden’s biggest military aid package for Ukraine so far and they will bring an entirely new capability for the Ukrainian Air Force, providing much enhanced air and sea surveillance and working together with its forthcoming F-16 fighters.
Airborne Radar

Ukraine Getting Swedish Airborne Early Warning Radar Planes Is A Big Deal

By Thomas Newdick, Tyler Rogoway

Posted on May 29, 2024

U-2's new radar is going to the Army's HADES surveillance jet.
Airborne Radar

Radar Developed For U-2 To Go On Army Intel-Gathering BizJets

By Joseph Trevithick

Posted on May 22, 2024

Recently released pictures of a Bahraini Block 70 F-16D Viper undergoing testing in the United States show what one of these jets might look like one an actual combat mission.
Targeting Pods

Our First Look At An Armed-Up Block 70 F-16 Viper

By Joseph Trevithick

Posted on Apr 12, 2024

F-22 with stealthy wing tanks and pods.
Infrared Search And Track

F-22 Spotted With New Stealth Wing Tanks, Infrared Sensor Pods

By Tyler Rogoway, Joseph Trevithick

Posted on Mar 22, 2024

The Pentagon has provided new details about a sensor system called Gremlin that it is developed specifically to collect data on so-called unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAPs.
Airborne Sensors

DoD To Deploy ‘Gremlin’ Sensors To Collect Intel On Unidentified Flying Objects

By Joseph Trevithick

Posted on Mar 9, 2024

Declassified documents shine new light on an incident off the coast of Florida in January 2023 where an Air Force pilot says they saw something that looked like an "Apollo spacecraft."
Airborne Radar

Air Force Pilot’s Bizarre Encounter With Capsule-Like Craft Off Florida Declassified

By Joseph Trevithick

Posted on Mar 7, 2024

A-4 TOP ACES IRST
Infrared Search And Track

A-4 Aggressor Now Boasts Infrared Search And Track System

By Thomas Newdick

Posted on Feb 27, 2024

LITENING LA Targeting pod Northrop Grumman
Airborne Sensors

We Talk New Features On The LITENING Large Aperture Targeting Pod

By Tyler Rogoway, Jamie Hunter

Posted on Feb 16, 2024

Low-Cost Infrared Search And Track System For Aircraft Unveiled By Anduril
Infrared Search And Track

Low-Cost Infrared Search And Track System For Aircraft Unveiled By Anduril

By Joseph Trevithick

Posted on Feb 8, 2024

The US government has approved the potential sale of aerostat-based surveillance systems to Poland.
Airborne Radar

Poland’s Plan To Deploy Early Warning Radar Aerostats Moves Forward

By Thomas Newdick

Posted on Feb 8, 2024

USSOCOM is looking for companies that can provide AESA radars for its C-130 fleet.
Airborne Radar

AESA Radars For AC-130J, MC-130J Sought By SOCOM

By Howard Altman, Tyler Rogoway

Posted on Jan 27, 2024

As part of a £2.35 billion investment into upgrading Typhoon, a European Common Radar System (ECRS) Mark 2 Radar developed by Leonardo UK features a unique multi-functional array (MFA) which will allow Typhoon to simultaneously detect, identify, and track multiple targets in the air and on the ground plus perform electronic warfare tasks.
Airborne Radar

British Eurofighter Finally Gets Advanced Swashplate AESA Radar

By Thomas Newdick

Posted on Jan 17, 2024

AEW&C aircraft in North Korea.
Airborne Sensors

North Korea May Be Building An Early-Warning Radar Plane

By Thomas Newdick

Posted on Dec 15, 2023

M55 Spy Plane may be headed for Ukraine war operations
Wide Area Aerial Surveillance

Soviet-Era M-55 Spy Plane May Be Headed To Support The War In Ukraine

By Thomas Newdick

Posted on Nov 21, 2023

Stealthy flying wing drones were a notable feature at a huge military parade in South Korea's capital Seoul on September 26, 2023.
Wide Area Aerial Surveillance

Little Stealthy Flying Wing Drone Displayed By South Korea

By Joseph Trevithick

Posted on Sep 26, 2023

AH-64E MUMT-X
Airborne Radar

This Is What The AH-64 Apache’s New Extended Rotor Mast Does

By Tyler Rogoway, Oliver Parken

Posted on Sep 7, 2023

IRST Taiwan F-16 Viper
Infrared Search And Track

Taiwan’s F-16s Cleared To Receive IRST Targeting Systems

By Joseph Trevithick

Posted on Aug 23, 2023

Chinese Spy Balloon
Wide Area Aerial Surveillance

Pentagon Wants A Way To Capture High-Flying Spy Balloons

By Thomas Newdick

Posted on Aug 8, 2023

F/A-18F IRST POD
Infrared Search And Track

F/A-18’s Infrared Search And Track System Plagued By Delays

By Thomas Newdick

Posted on Jun 9, 2023

AC-130 Gunship AESA
Airborne Radar

AC-130J Ghostrider Could Get Huge Upgrade From AESA Radar

By Joseph Trevithick, Tyler Rogoway

Updated on May 15, 2023

Chinese Spaceplane Docked With Another Object Multiple Times Data Indicates
Wide Area Aerial Surveillance

Chinese Spaceplane Docked With Another Object Multiple Times Data Indicates

By Joseph Trevithick

Posted on May 9, 2023

Retirement Of MC-130H Speeds Up MC-130J Low-Flying Radar Upgrade
Airborne Radar

Retirement Of MC-130H Speeds Up MC-130J Low-Flying Radar Upgrade

By Joseph Trevithick

Posted on Apr 11, 2023

KJ500 AEW&C
Airborne Radar

China’s Massive Fleet Of Radar Planes And The Strategy Behind It

By Thomas Newdick, Andreas Rupprecht

Posted on Apr 5, 2023

Big Emphasis On ‘Spectral Warfare’ In Air Force’s Next Generation Air Dominance Plans
Airborne Radar

Big Emphasis On ‘Spectral Warfare’ In Air Force’s Next Generation Air Dominance Plans

By Joseph Trevithick

Posted on Mar 27, 2023

Chinese balloon-launched drones
Wide Area Aerial Surveillance

China Sees Balloon-Launched Drone Swarms In Its Future

By Joseph Trevithick

Posted on Mar 2, 2023

U-2 Pilot’s Selfie Flying Alongside Chinese Spy Balloon Leaks (Updated)
Wide Area Aerial Surveillance

U-2 Pilot’s Selfie Flying Alongside Chinese Spy Balloon Leaks (Updated)

By Joseph Trevithick

Updated on Feb 21, 2023

AN-S1 medium-altitude balloon
Wide Area Aerial Surveillance

Russia Also Has A Fleet Of Spy Balloons

By Piotr Butowski

Updated on Feb 13, 2023

The Army Has Axed Its Dash-8 Surveillance Planes
Wide Area Aerial Surveillance

The Army Has Axed Its Dash-8 Surveillance Planes

By Joseph Trevithick

Posted on Feb 9, 2023

Our First Look At Chinese Spy Balloon Debris Being Recovered
Wide Area Aerial Surveillance

Our First Look At Chinese Spy Balloon Debris Being Recovered

By Joseph Trevithick

Posted on Feb 7, 2023

China Spy Balloon
Wide Area Aerial Surveillance

Why Shooting Down China’s Spy Balloon Over The U.S. Is More Complicated Than It Seems

By Emma Helfrich, Joseph Trevithick, Tyler Rogoway

Posted on Feb 4, 2023