US looking for aerostat air-defence radars for Saudi Arabia

摘要

The US Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (AFLCMC) has released a request for information (RFI) for radars that are carried by aerostats to increase their ability to detect low-flying missiles and aircraft as part of a wider Saudi C4I modernisation study. AFLCMC said it has already carried out a Saudi radar coverage study that concluded that "the combination of terrain and Earth surface curvature make it economically unfeasible to provide a complete and persistent coverage using ground-based radar assets against low-altitude in-bound air-breathing threats". As an example, it said that a radar on a 100 ft (30.48 m)-high tower cannot see a threat flying at 100 ft until it is 45 km away.