Posted by Courtney E. Howard
WILMINGTON, Mass., 7 April 2010. The Republic of Korea Air Force has chosen Textron Defense Systems' Sensor Fuzed Weapon (SFW) for integration onto the Korea Aerospace Industries FA-50 light combat aircraft. Through a foreign military sale led by the Eglin Air Force Base Air Armament Center and the Defense Acquisition Program Administration of South Korea, Textron Defense Systems expects to begin providing inert integration rounds starting in 2010.
"SFW's precision and reliability are valuable assets that can help ensure the security of the Korean Peninsula and greater Pacific Region," says senior vice president and general manager Mark Catizone of Textron Defense Systems. "The integration of our SFW smart area weapon onto the highly capable FA-50 aircraft is an important first step toward system purchases in the future."
Textron Defense Systems' SFW detects and defeats a range of moving and stationary land and maritime target threats — from heavy armored battle tanks and soft-skinned vehicles to maritime threats — over a wide area with minimal collateral damage and no hazardous unexploded ordnance. SFW has been verified by the U.S. government to achieve greater than 99 percent reliability during its flight test program, which includes thousands of tests in various conditions.
SFW contains Textron Defense Systems' BLU-108 submunition and smart Skeet warheads equipped with dual-mode passive infrared and active laser sensors. If a Skeet warhead does not detect a valid target over its lofted trajectory, one of its three safety modes will activate.
The first two modes enable the Skeet to self destruct after eight seconds from launch or within a 50-foot (approximately 15-meter) altitude above the ground. The Skeet's third feature is a self-neutralizing time-out device that will yield the warhead inert within minutes of hitting the ground. These built-in, redundant self-destruct logic and self-neutralization features are key elements that distinguish SFW from legacy munitions, says a company representative.
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