NASHUA, N.H., 24 Sept. 2007.BAE Systems has completed acceptance testing for the F-35 Lightning II electronic warfare (EW) suite spiral release 2. The system met all contractual requirements during formal evaluation by Lockheed Martin program officials. The final electronic warfare suite will detect, analyze, evaluate, and react to EW threats fielded by potential adversaries. This spiral release provides the capabilities to perform initial manufacturing system checkouts on F-35 BF-4, the first full avionics aircraft, scheduled to fly in the first quarter of 2009.
BAE Systems completed hardware and software testing on the initial flight-representative hardware for the electronic warfare system that included designing, building, and testing the electronic support measures and countermeasures hardware and more than 120,000 lines of software code.
The five-year project included an upgrade kit for the program's electronic support measures test bench. The test bench examines, correlates, and accounts for signals that bounce off an aircraft's reflective surfaces. The project also included an update of the interface units for the F-35 radio frequency test system. The test system reflects how the system would operate under real-world conditions.
The system was delivered to Lockheed Martin Aeronautics' Mission Systems Integration Laboratory in Fort Worth, Texas. It will be used for integration and then released to the production floor and installed in an F-35 aircraft.
