"The improved supportability and capabilities of this radar upgrade will allow the F-15C/D to serve as the Air Force's premier air superiority fighter for many more years to come," said Mike Marks, vice president and general manager of the F-15 program at McDonnell Douglas. "And completing this test flight is an important step toward getting this system into low rate initial production next month."

McDonnell Douglas, Hughes Aircraft and the Air Force have worked together as an integrated product team to meet the tough schedule included in the $200 million engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) contract awarded to McDonnell Douglas by the Air Force in 1994, with Hughes as the principal subcontractor.

"Through teamwork, we've been able to put the system through complete systems integration, including detection of live targets, and met every major milestone on time," said Erwin F. Grau II, deputy director of F-15 radar programs for Hughes.

Special attention in the upgrade program was placed on a design to balance the need of system performance, cost and reliability, and on a rigorous parts management program to maximize the availability of parts for the radar system for years to come.

"The expected reliability of the new hardware, coupled with its enhanced built-in-test capability, allows the upgrade kit to fully support the Air Force two-level maintenance concept," Grau said. "These features, coupled with a lifetime contractor support plan that provides high radar availability, will greatly reduce the operational costs and make deployment of F-15s easier."

In addition to greater reliability and maintainability, along with incorporation of today's technology, the APG-63 (V) 1 also offers substantial growth in processing and electronic counter-countermeasures capability as well as substantial air-to-ground mode improvement for future F-15s.

The U.S. Air Force has more than 400 F-15C/D aircraft and more than 100 F-15 A/B aircraft in service today with the APG-63 radar. A portion of these F-15s are candidates for the APG-63 (V) 1 upgrade, as well as a portion of APG-63-equipped F-15s in service with the air forces of foreign customers.

Later model F-15s, including the F-15E, are equipped with the Hughes APG-70 radar.

The EMD phase of the APG-63 (V) 1 program, now entering flight test, included the design, building, integrating and testing of an upgrade kit to work with the existing F-15C/D radar antenna and displays with only minor aircraft interface modifications. The upgrade kit uses the F-15E's APG-70 tactical software with limited changes and will allow for future growth potential to meet anticipated evolving threats.