The AN/APG-65 and AN/APG-73 are designations for a family of all-weather multimode airborne radar systems designed by

Hughes Aircraft The Hughes Aircraft Company was a major American aerospace company, aerospace and defense contractor founded on February 14, 1934 by Howard Hughes in Glendale, California, as a division of the Hughes Tool Company. The company produced the Hughes ...

(now

Raytheon Raytheon is a business unit of RTX Corporation and is a major U.S. defense contractor and industrial corporation with manufacturing concentrations in weapons and military and commercial electronics. Founded in 1922, it merged in 2020 with Unite ...

) for the

F/A-18 Hornet The McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet is an all-weather supersonic, twinjet, twin-engine, carrier-based aircraft, carrier-capable, Multirole combat aircraft, multirole combat aircraft, designed as both a Fighter aircraft, fighter and attack airc ...

, and used on a variety of

fighter aircraft Fighter aircraft (early on also ''pursuit aircraft'') are military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat. In military conflict, the role of fighter aircraft is to establish air supremacy, air superiority of the battlespace. Domina ...

types. The

APG-79 The AN/APG-79 is a type of active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar that was developed for use on the United States Navy's Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and Boeing EA-18G Growler aircraft. The radar's AESA technology provides quick updat ...

is an upgraded AESA version. These I band (8 to 12

GHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), often described as being equivalent to one event (or Cycle per second, cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose formal expression in ter ...

)

pulse-Doppler radar A pulse-Doppler radar is a radar system that determines the range to a target using pulse-timing techniques, and uses the Doppler effect of the returned signal to determine the target object's velocity. It combines the features of pulse radars and ...

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 and

track-while-scan Track-while-scan (TWS) is a mode of radar operation in which the radar allocates part of its power to tracking a target or targets (up to forty with modern radar) while part of its power is allocated to scanning. It is similar to but functions diff ...

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 range

synthetic aperture radar Synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) is a form of radar that is used to create two-dimensional images or 3D reconstruction, three-dimensional reconstructions of objects, such as landscapes. SAR uses the motion of the radar antenna over a target regi ...

, 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.

AN/APG-65

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 as

AIM-120 The AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) ( ) is an American beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile capable of all-weather day-and-night operations. It uses active transmit-receive radar guidance instead of semi-active rece ...

, 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 in

strike fighters of the

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest displacement, at 4.5 million tons in 2021. It has the world's largest aircraft ...

and

Marine Corps Marines (or naval infantry) are military personnel generally trained to operate on both land and sea, with a particular focus on amphibious warfare. Historically, the main tasks undertaken by marines have included raiding ashore (often in supp ...

, and the air forces of

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

Kuwait Kuwait, officially the State of Kuwait, is a country in West Asia and the geopolitical region known as the Middle East. It is situated in the northern edge of the Arabian Peninsula at the head of the Persian Gulf, bordering Iraq to Iraq–Kuwait ...

, and

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

. It has also been adapted to upgrade the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

and

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

F-4 Phantom The McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II is an American tandem two-seat, twin-engine, all-weather, long-range supersonic jet interceptor and fighter-bomber that was developed by McDonnell Aircraft for the United States Navy.Swanborough and Bowers ...

aircraft, and the

AV-8B Harrier II The McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) AV-8B Harrier II is a single-engine ground-attack aircraft that constitutes the second generation of the Harrier family, capable of vertical or short takeoff and landing (V/STOL). The aircraft is primaril ...

Plus for the U.S. Marine Corps and the Spanish and Italian Navies.

AN/APG-73

The APG-73 is a late 1980s "upgrade of the APG-65 that provides higher throughputs, greater memory capacity, improved reliability, and easier maintenance". To reduce production costs, many of the upgraded radar's modules are common with the APG-70 (F-15E Strike Eagle) radar; its software engineers chose the

JOVIAL JOVIAL is a high-level programming language based on ALGOL 58, specialized for developing embedded systems (specialized computer systems designed to perform one or a few dedicated functions, usually embedded as part of a larger, more complete d ...

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 Corps

F/A-18C/D Hornet The McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet is an all-weather supersonic, twin-engine, carrier-capable, multirole combat aircraft, designed as both a fighter and attack aircraft (hence the F/A designation). Designed by McDonnell Douglas and North ...

aircraft; early models of the U.S. Navy

F/A-18E/F Super Hornet The Boeing F/A-18E and F/A-18F Super Hornet are a series of American supersonic twinjet, twin-engine, Carrier-based aircraft, carrier-capable, Multirole combat aircraft, multirole fighter aircraft derived from the McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Ho ...

; and in the air forces of

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...

, and

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

. A total of 932 APG-73 systems were delivered, with the final delivery in 2006.

AN/APG-65

AN/APG-73

References

See also