US Navy NP-3D Billboard remplacement
Posted: 26 Jun 2018, 07:37
As reported before on Scramble Facebook News, the US Navy is replacing its NP-3D Billboard range monitoring Orion (150521/341 of VX-30) with a new plane that has the same shape as the ones in use by countries like Israel, Italy, and Singapore.
The well known long-range business jet is now designated NC-37B, BuNo 166379/100, and assigned to Air Test and Evaluation Squadron (VX) 30 Bloodhounds based at NAS Point Mugu (CA). The Conformal Airborne Early Warning (CAEW) aircraft will be used in the Naval Air Warfare Center - Weapons Division (NAWC-WD) Sea Range Support mission off coast California.
Defence Industry reported that "the one area that isn’t clear is the electronics. Some reports note IAI Elta as the sub-contractor, but that doesn’t appear in official announcements or new releases. The text of this FBO.gov announcement, and the fact that they’re buying from the US manufacturer rather than Elbit or IAI, suggest that may only be buying the certified airframe. That would mean that they’d need to integrate their own radars, datalinks, etc. for over the horizon monitoring and missile testing. The full AWACS equipment set would certainly work, but it isn’t cheap, and may be more than the mission needs.
Fortunately, the CAEW comes with a lot of built-in space and power for any installations the US Navy wants performed.
Photo: NP-3D Defence Industry, NC-37B anonymous
The well known long-range business jet is now designated NC-37B, BuNo 166379/100, and assigned to Air Test and Evaluation Squadron (VX) 30 Bloodhounds based at NAS Point Mugu (CA). The Conformal Airborne Early Warning (CAEW) aircraft will be used in the Naval Air Warfare Center - Weapons Division (NAWC-WD) Sea Range Support mission off coast California.
Defence Industry reported that "the one area that isn’t clear is the electronics. Some reports note IAI Elta as the sub-contractor, but that doesn’t appear in official announcements or new releases. The text of this FBO.gov announcement, and the fact that they’re buying from the US manufacturer rather than Elbit or IAI, suggest that may only be buying the certified airframe. That would mean that they’d need to integrate their own radars, datalinks, etc. for over the horizon monitoring and missile testing. The full AWACS equipment set would certainly work, but it isn’t cheap, and may be more than the mission needs.
Fortunately, the CAEW comes with a lot of built-in space and power for any installations the US Navy wants performed.
Photo: NP-3D Defence Industry, NC-37B anonymous