The U.S. Navy has awarded L3Harris Technologies a $104 million follow-on contract to supply the next production lot of the electronic warfare (EW) system that protects F/A-18 Hornet and Super Hornet aircraft against electronic threats. The announcement was made in conjunction with vHook’20 being held virtually, September 10-12.

L3Harris will manufacture and deliver Integrated Defensive Electronic Countermeasures (IDECM) jammer systems for the F/A-18C/D/E/F variants, with deliveries under the new contract expected to be completed by May 2024. The L3Harris ALQ-214A(V)4/5 is the key On-board Jammer for the IDECM program, protecting the aircraft from electronic threats, including sophisticated integrated air defence systems. The company has received more than $2 billion in awards to date from the Naval Air Systems Command for AN/ALQ-214 development and production.

The AN/ALQ-214(V)4 is an electronic jammer component of the integrated defensive electronic countermeasures system (IDECM) avionics, which comes to the Navy from a joint venture of Harris and BAE Systems. It protects Navy fighter-bombers from radar-guided surface-to-air and air-to-air missiles by jamming the enemy missile guidance systems.

The AN/ALQ-214(V)4 a smaller and lighter version of its predecessors, and has an open-architecture design that is ready for integration on several different kinds of aircraft.

The system is designed to counter radar-guided anti-aircraft missiles with electronic countermeasures (ECM) techniques that deny, disrupt, delay, and degrade the enemy missile launch and engagement sequence. The system identifies, ranks, and counters incoming missiles, and displays engagements to the flight crew for situational awareness.