CAESAR Completes Flight Trials on Eurofighter

SELEX Sensors & Airborne Systems, EDINBURGH, Scotland: The Euroradar CAESAR active electronically scanned array (AESA) variant of the successful CAPTOR radar system has successfully completed a flight test programme in the Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft. The flights were conducted by EADS from the Manching facility in Germany. 
 
The CAESAR (Captor Active Electronically Scanned Array Radar) system is an AESA radar demonstrator developed and funded by the Euroradar consortium consisting of – SELEX Sensors & Airborne Systems (S&AS), Galileo Avionica of Italy, EADS Defence Electronics of Germany and INDRA of Spain. CAESAR enables AESA capability to be fully exploited, while retaining all features and capabilities of the original CAPTOR radar system. 
 
Installation and flight testing in the Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft was completed under a funded programme from the German government. Completion of this successful flight programme on the Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft is the culmination of four years cooperative work between the major European radar suppliers and Eurofighter industries. 
 
The functionality of CAESAR had been comprehensively demonstrated in ground tests and in flights on a BAC1-11 test bed that took place in November 2006, and is, designed to be fully compatible with the installation in Eurofighter Typhoon. 
 
The successful flights in Eurofighter prove the high level of technology readiness of the AESA upgrade of the Captor radar as well as the ease of integration into the complex avionics system. 
 
Euroradar’s Board of Directors (BoD) Chairman Andrew Cowdery said: This is a very important achievement of Euroradar having successfully proven the technology, Euroradar is now ready to take the CAESAR upgrade package to a fully productionised standard.”