General Atomics radars for US Army, Air Force

The US Army and Air Force have bought six of General Atomics (GA) new Lynx day/night, surveillance and target tracking radars, recently designated the AN/APY-8 by the DoD.

Operating in Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) mode Lynx provides photographic-like images of up to 4 inch resolution and, depending on weather an imaging resolution, can operate at a range of up to 85 kilometres. In ground moving target indicator mode it can detect moving targets with 4 inch resolution.

The Army is installing three Lynx systems on an Amy DH-7 Airborne Reconnaissance Low aircraft. In addition one Lynx, previously leased but recently bought has been operational with the Army since July 2000 The Army is using a Lynx for installation and demonstration of its SAR and ground moving target indication modes on a Blackhawk helicopter for future rotor craft applications. GA is carrying out the installation, flight testing as well as vibration testing and analysis during the the demonstration which will take place later this year.

The Air Force has bought one system for the Eglin AFB radar test facility to assess the radar's capabilities in the laboratory and on a variety of aircraft, and another for installation on aUAV.

All of the systems will use a GA produced Control of Lynx and Analysis Workstation (CLAW), a PC-based software package that allows point-and-click operation, display and analysis of radar and optical payloads.

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