Navy awards $97M deal for radar jammers

The jammers will be used on F/A-18 Hornets and Super Hornets.

The Navy has awarded a $97.3 million contract to Exelis for the latest version of the onboard electronic jammers used to protect carrier-based F/A-18C/D Hornets from surface-to-air and air-to-air radar guided threats.

The Naval Air Systems Command at Patuxent River, Md., awarded the deal under the Integrated Defensive Electronic Countermeasures (IDECM) program, which provides a suite of electronic warfare tools for protection of strike aircraft.  The contract calls for delivery of 46 full-rate production Lot XII AN/ALQ-214(V)4/5 systems, with deliveries to be completed by December 2017.

Exelis has been making versions of the jammer for the Navy since 1997, and a year ago delivered the first nine of the version 4/5 systems under a previous contract. The 4/5 follows version 3, the last deliveries of which were made to the Navy in mid-2013. The latest version reduces the size and weight of the system and allows it for the first time to be installed on F/A-18C/D Hornets, along with F/A-18E/F Super Hornets that used the earlier versions, the company said.