AN / ALQ-131

An A-10 with the ALQ-131 (mounted on the outer left weapon carrier)

The AN / ALQ-131 is an airborne system for electronic countermeasures at medium range. It is used by the US Corporation Westinghouse manufactures and located since 1976 in active service.

description

The ALQ-131 is housed in an external container and can therefore be easily attached to a suitable weapon station under the wings of the carrier aircraft. It is designed for fully autonomous operation, but can also be connected to the on-board systems of the carrier aircraft to increase efficiency.

The system is primarily used for self-protection and can disrupt all types of radar-guided air defense systems. However, the performance is not sufficient to be able to interfere with radars over long distances. The ALQ-131 has a modular structure and has reconfigurable software so that the interference equipment can be adapted to the expected spectrum of hazards. Two of the five available modules can be selected and integrated, and three after the Block II upgrade. This upgrade also were COTS - processors and the MIL-STD-1553 integrated data bus. Furthermore, the system can be configured in such a way that it offers your own radar systems a short time and frequency window in which they can be operated without interference. In all variants, the signal is amplified by means of two traveling wave tubes . Up to 48 interfering techniques can be used in parallel.

To date, the ALQ-131 has flown over 15,000 successful combat missions, including around 8,000 during Operation Desert Storm . On average, there was a system failure every 200 hours and the availability was 95%. Due to the high level of widespread use among NATO forces, Northrop Grumman has been offering an MLU (“Mid-Life Upgrade”) package since 2004. Many of the 1,250 systems produced have now been modernized to the Block II standard. This mainly comprises new transmitters and processors, whereby the integration into the avionics systems of the carrier platform has also been improved.