Northrop Grumman to supply AN/ALQ-251 RFCMs for Australia's C-130J-30 aircraft

RAAF's new fleet of C-130J-30 Hercules transport aircraft will be integrated with Northrop Grumman's AN/ALQ-251 RFCM systems. (Commonwealth of Australia)

Northrop Grumman Corporation has secured a contract from the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) to deliver its AN/ALQ-251 radio frequency countermeasures (RFCM) systems for the RAAF's fleet of C-130J-30 Hercules transport aircraft.

The AN/ALQ-251 RFCM will protect the RAAF's C-130J-30 fleet against advanced weapon systems and agile electronic warfare (EW) systems in dense electromagnetic spectrum environments, Northrop Grumman said in a media release on 3 April.

“[AN/ALQ-251] gives aircrews full situational awareness, radar warning, and precision direction finding of RF threats,” the company added.

According to company specifications, AN/ALQ-251 has a modular and open architecture and can detect complex emitters including millimetre wave frequency. The system can display angle of arrival (AoA) of a signal and provide the capacity to countermeasure multiple RF threats simultaneously.

In July 2023 the Australian government announced it will purchase 20 Lockheed Martin C-130J-30s for the RAAF under a contract worth AUD9.8 billion (USD5.9 billion) to replace its current ageing fleet of 12 C-130J-30s.

The procurement was downsized from the 24 C-130J-30s that Australia had originally considered. In November 2022 the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) announced Canberra had requested to buy 24 C-130J-30s. At the time, the DSCA said Australia requested 32 AN/ALQ-251 systems for the C-130J-30s.

It is unclear how many AN/ALQ-251s will now be supplied for the C-130J-30s.

Northrop Grumman had not responded to Janes request for more information at the time of publication.

According to Janes All the World's Aircraft: Development & Production