SA aerospace firm takes offer to upgrade old jet fighters global By: Keith Campbell
Published: 15 Aug 08 - 0:00
South Africa's Midrand-based private-sector defence company Advanced Technologies & Engineering (ATE), which is an integrator of mission systems, has revealed that it has developed a further upgrade for the venerable French Dassault Mirage III, Mirage V, and Mirage F1, fighters, which were orginally designed in the 1960s and 1970s but which remain in service in a number of countries around the world.
At least two overseas air forces are interested in the new upgrade, which is intended to allow these aircraft to remain operationally credible in the 21st century, by giving them beyond-visual range (BVR) air combat capability.
Until now, these fighters have been able to employ only short-range weapons - guns, infrared (IR)-homing air to air missiles (AAMs).
The only radar-guided AAMs they could use were also, by today's standards, short-ranged and, anyway, have long been totally obsolete.
The idea is to permit countries to achieve a modern interception and attack capability for a fraction of the price of buying new fighters.
ATE has designed a new Avionics and Weapons System (AWS) for these aircraft, which would equip them with a modern avionics, including fire control radar, allowing them to use radar-guided and/or IR-homing BVR AAMs, as well as modern IR-homing short-range
Link to full article and source
http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article.php?a_id=140059
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