A squadron of F-35As flying over Hill Air Force Base in Utah. (Photo courtesy of U.S. Air Force)
The Air Force now expects to receive the first Northrop Grumman APG-85 radar for the F-35A fighter by Lockheed Martin in April 2028–nine months earlier than previously scheduled, according to the service’s fiscal 2027 procurement budget document.
The fiscal 2025 Air Force budget request had said that full procurement funding would begin in fiscal 2027 with Lot 21 for the first APG-85 to field on an F-35A by January 2029.
The APG-85, which thus far is only for U.S. F-35s, is to deny adversary use of the electromagnetic spectrum and to allow better weapons accuracy and targeting of enemy airborne and surface radars at greater ranges than the fighter’s current APG-81, also by Northrop Grumman.
The unit cost of the APG-85, including two years of advance procurement funding, is about $8.8 million according to the fiscal 2027 Air Force procurement budget, which lays out a nearly $335 million request for 38 radars, which are not covered under the existing F-35 contract but instead go to the military as government furnished equipment. An APG-85 procurement contract may come this November.
“APG-85 just in time advance procurement for long lead materials is required two years in advance due to APG-85 manufacturing timelines and F-35 aircraft lot insertion schedule,” according to the Air Force.
The first year of advance procurement (AP) “supports suppliers/systems based on lead time associated with the materials: microcircuits, connectors, magnet assembly, transceiver kits, inductor chips, forward housing assembly, signal processors, radiator structures, amplifiers, and chassis assembly,” while the second year of AP funding “completes material buys, manufactures, and delivers the completed radar for lead time integration into the complete air system aircraft,” the service has said.
Radar mountings in the F-35’s nose are different for the current APG-81 and the future APG-85 radar–a difference which has helped complicate fielding of the new radar which was to deliver with F-35 Lot 17.
F-35s have delivered without radars because the APG-85 bulkhead radar mountings in the aircraft’s nose are incompatible with the APG-81–a factor that has led to consideration of a a dual-mount bulkhead, though the latter may take two years to field.
A version of this story originally appeared in sister publication Defense Daily.
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