BALTIMORE, Sept. 8, 2005 -- Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) has begun initial flight testing of the advanced fire-control radar being developed for the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) aircraft. The radar is designed to enable F-35 pilots to effectively engage air and ground targets at long range, while also providing outstanding situational awareness for enhanced survivability.

Designated the AN/APG-81, the active electronically scanned array radar was first flown on Aug. 23 and 25 on Northrop Grumman's BAC-1-11 testbed aircraft. During the flights, the all-aspect search, air-track and synthetic-aperture radar mode capabilities of the radar were successfully evaluated against airborne and ground-based targets.

"The outstanding performance of the radar on these initial flights underscores the intense development effort under way on the F-35 mission avionics and marks the culmination of a successful design, hardware build, software development and systems integration process," said John C. Johnson, vice president of Combat Avionics Systems at Northrop Grumman. "We expect to accelerate the validation of the radar performance during the flight-test program and progress with the systems-integration effort ahead of schedule."

In addition to providing the radar, Northrop Grumman's Electronic Systems sector is providing the AN/AAS-37 electro-optical distributed aperture system for the F-35. The distributed aperture system will provide F-35 pilots with a unique protective sphere around the aircraft for missile warning, navigation support and night operations.