TheAN/APG-65 andAN/APG-73 are designations for a family of all-weather multimodeairborne radar systems designed byHughes Aircraft (nowRaytheon) for theF/A-18 Hornet, and used on a variety offighter aircraft types. TheAPG-79 is an upgradedAESA version.
TheseI band (8 to 12GHz)pulse-Doppler radar systems are designed for both air-to-air and air-to-surface missions. For air-to-air operations they incorporate a variety of search, track andtrack-while-scan modes to give the pilot a complete look-down/shoot-down capability. Air-to-surface modes include Doppler beam sharpened sector and patch mapping, medium rangesynthetic aperture radar, fixed and moving ground target track and sea surface search. In the F/A-18, the radar is installed in a slide-out nose rack to facilitate maintenance.
The APG-65 was developed in the late 1970s and has been operational since 1983. The radar includes a velocity search (to provide maximum detection range capability against nose aspect targets), range-while-search (to detect all-aspect targets), track-while-scan (which, when combined with an autonomous missile such asAIM-120, gives the aircraft a fire-and-forget capability), single target track, gun director and raid assessment (which enables the operator to expand the region centred on a single tracked target, permitting radar separation of closely spaced targets) operating modes.
Although no longer in production, the APG-65 remains in service inF/A-18 Hornet strike fighters of theU.S. Navy andMarine Corps, and the air forces ofCanada,Kuwait, andSpain. It has also been adapted to upgrade theGerman andGreekF-4 Phantom aircraft, and theAV-8B Harrier II Plus for the U.S. Marine Corps and the Spanish and Italian Navies.
The APG-73 is a late 1980s "upgrade of the APG-65 that provides higher throughputs, greater memory capacity, improved reliability, and easier maintenance".[1] To reduce production costs, many of the upgraded radar's modules are common with theAPG-70 (F-15E Strike Eagle) radar; its software engineers chose theJOVIAL programming language so that they could borrow and adapt existing software written for the APG-70. When fitted with a motion-sensing subsystem and stretch waveform generator and special test equipment, the APG-73 can generate high resolution ground maps and make use of 'advanced' image correlation algorithms to enhance weapon designation accuracy.
Since 1992 the APG-73 has been operational in U.S. Navy and Marine CorpsF/A-18C/D Hornet aircraft; early models of the U.S. NavyF/A-18E/F Super Hornet; and in the air forces ofFinland,Switzerland,Malaysia,Canada, andAustralia. A total of 932 APG-73 systems were delivered, with the final delivery in 2006.[2]
is an upgrade of the APG-65 that provides higher throughputs, greater memory capacity, improved reliability, and easier maintenance
