Industry team chosen to provide Apache radar

Engineers from the Longbow Limited Liability Co., a Lockheed Martin/ Northrop Grumman joint venture in Orlando, Fla., are building 207 Longbow Apache fire-control radar systems to the U.S. Army under a $565 million contract. Experts of this joint venture received earlier contracts in 1996 and 1997 for the first 20 production units. They are building these radar systems to enable the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter to detect, classify, rank, and attack ground targets during the day or at night, in poor weather, and in battlefield smoke. Army officials are planning to use a version of this radar on the future Boeing Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche scout/attack helicopter. - J.K.