IN Brief:
- Longbow LLC received a $419,607,961 Army contract for Apache AH-64D/E fire control radars and post-production support.
- Funding, work locations and equipment quantities will be determined by subsequent orders.
- The AN/APG-78 Longbow radar supplies target detection, location, classification and prioritisation data to Apache crews.
Longbow LLC has received a US Army contract valued at $419.6 million for Apache attack helicopter fire control radar systems and post-production support, sustaining an established sensor programme through January 2032. The award, announced on 22 October, covers the AH-64D and AH-64E variants. Work locations and funding will be established through individual orders, so the announced figure is the contract value rather than an amount identified as immediately obligated.
The Orlando, Florida, contractor is a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman that developed and produces the AN/APG-78 Longbow fire control radar. Mounted above the Apache’s main rotor, the system supports target detection, location, classification and prioritisation. Its position allows the radar to survey an area when the aircraft is using terrain for cover, subject to the helicopter’s attitude and operating environment. The system provides information for crews rather than independently determining which targets must be engaged.
Army Contracting Command at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, awarded contract W58RGZ-27-D-A008 for $419,607,961. Its terms include cost-no-fee, cost-plus-fixed-fee and firm-fixed-price elements, consistent with an arrangement covering equipment alongside engineering or support services. The Army solicited one bid and received one response. It has not published an initial quantity of radars, an allocation between production and maintenance, or a site-by-site distribution of future work.
The AN/APG-78 radar detects reflected radio-frequency signals and processes them to establish the position and characteristics of targets. It complements the Apache’s optical sights, whose ability to observe a scene can be affected differently by weather, obscurants and line of sight. Positioned in a housing above the rotor, the radar can scan while much of the helicopter remains behind terrain, subject to the aircraft’s attitude and the surrounding obstacles. The resulting information is processed within the aircraft’s mission system for crew assessment and weapon employment.
Lockheed Martin says Longbow entered full-rate production in 1996 and the first unit was installed in 1998. The radar is therefore supported across a mixture of aircraft vintages, software versions and national fleets. Keeping those systems available requires more than replacing failed parts: repairs must be calibrated and tested against an accepted configuration, while newly manufactured assemblies need to remain compatible with aircraft interfaces and the radar’s existing operating modes. Those requirements continue even when an individual airframe receives no substantial change.
Earlier Longbow upgrades have extended the system’s surveillance and targeting functions. Lockheed Martin’s published product information identifies Version 6 features including maritime targeting and a wider set of air, ground and situational awareness modes. Those capabilities describe the radar family; the October award does not itemise a new software version, additional mode or particular foreign customer’s configuration. The new contract is consequently best understood through its stated scope of radar systems and post-production support rather than an unannounced sensor development programme.
Post-production support can involve activity quite different from building a new radar. Operators need defective units assessed, repaired and returned to a controlled configuration, while spares must remain compatible with aircraft software and electronics. Components can reach the end of their commercial manufacturing life before the radar itself is retired. Maintaining traceability of replacement parts and verifying repaired equipment against accepted performance standards is consequently as important to fleet availability as producing an initial system.
Including AH-64D and AH-64E equipment also creates configuration control work. The variants have different service histories, and installed radars may not all share an identical equipment or software baseline. A replacement assembly must match the receiving aircraft and its approved configuration, while repairs may require testing against a defined revision. The award leaves quantities, individual delivery dates and the share of expenditure attributable to each variant to subsequent orders.
The contract’s mixed pricing terms reflect the possibility of different types of deliverable. Equipment with clearly defined quantities and acceptance requirements can be purchased under one pricing structure, while less predictable engineering or support activity may use another. The announcement does not allocate values among those elements. Because work sites will be determined through orders, forecasts of an immediate increase in factory output or employment would exceed the facts released by the Army.
The contract allows the Army to place orders for Longbow systems and support through an estimated completion date of 31 January 2032. Its eventual manufacturing and repair workload will become clearer when the Army issues funded orders and identifies the equipment or services required. For now, the $419.6 million award establishes a procurement framework for continuing radar supply and sustainment, with no disclosed commitment to a specific new production rate.
