Airborne Sensors

Latest in Airborne Sensors

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.
Air

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.
Air

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.
Air

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.
Air

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
Air

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.
Air

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.
Air

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
Air

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.
Air

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

By Thomas Newdick

Posted on Jan 17, 2025

Hades ALEs
Air

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.
Air

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.
Air

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.
Air

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.
Air

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.
Air

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
Air

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