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U.S. Army buys $1 billion in infrared helicopter missile shields
By Dan Parsons | May 5, 2021
Estimated reading time 4 minutes, 44 seconds.
The U.S. Army has awarded Northrop Grumman a contract worth nearly $1 billion to equip its helicopters with infrared jammers designed to blind incoming heat-seeking missiles.
Northrop will build common infrared countermeasures (CIRCM) for Army combat helicopters through April 2026 under the $959 million contract awarded April 30. Northrop was the sole company to bid for the contract, according to a Defense Department announcement.
Northrop Grumman Future Vertical Lift (FVL) Conceptual Artist Rendering
The Army plans to buy more than 1,000 CIRCM suites for the AH-64 Apache, UH-60 Black Hawk and CH-47 Chinook. Designed with an open-architecture backbone that allows both integration onto various aircraft and future software and hardware upgrades, CIRCM also likely will protect the Future Attack Recon Aircraft (FARA) and Future Long Range
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(Photo : Tnr20/Wikimedia)
According to the aerospace company, the Bell 360 Invictus next general assault helicopter is at 30 percent completion. The prototype will be ready to fly by the end of 2022, when entirely constructed in Amarillo, Texas.
Bell 360 Invictus status
Keith Flail, Bell s vice president of next-generation vertical lift systems, stated parts like interior structure and fuselage skin of the X-aircraft are all install, reported Vertical Lift Mag.
He told reporters that structure and skins are getting assembled on the aircraft, next will installing systems to follow. This was said by the company official on the occasion of Bell s virtual media day last March 24.
By Dan Parsons | March 11, 2021
Estimated reading time 7 minutes, 24 seconds.
Northrop Grumman is nearing production of a new 20-millimeter chain gun, an improved version of the M230 Apache nose cannon the company hopes will earn its way onto the U.S. Army’s Future Attack Recon Aircraft (FARA).
Called the “Sky Viper,” the chain gun system the gun itself, ammunition, feeding and control mechanisms weighs less, fires more rapidly and has a lighter recoil than the legacy cannon. It is also designed with greater accuracy and simpler, easier-to-maintain mechanisms than a rotary cannon, according to Quinn Canole, deputy director of Northrop’s guns operating unit.