• Aviation News
• Military Aviation
• Weapons

Northrop Grumman and USAF Test SiAW separation from F-16

Northrop Grumman Corporation, in collaboration with the US Air Force (USAF), recently completed a separation test of the Stand-In Attack Weapon (SiAW) from an F-16 aircraft. The separation test was designed to validate the flight safety and aerodynamic performance of SiAW and illustrate the missile’s progress towards integration with fifth-generation platforms such as the F-35. Safe separation from the F-16 is an important milestone for the missile and reinforces the system’s design maturity.

Col. Gary E. Roos, senior materiel leader, Adaptive Weapons Division, Air Force Life Cycle Management Center: “The separation test of SiAW from the F-16 is intended to provide the United States Air Force validation of the weapon’s safe separation characteristics and also generate invaluable data for optimizing its performance. The results can reinforce SiAW’s ability to provide a critical advantage to warfighters in the face of evolving threats.”

Stand-In Attack Weapon

Chuck Johnson, vice president, advanced weapons, Northrop Grumman, said in a company news release: “This milestone is a key step forward for the SiAW program. With the insights from the separation test, we will continue missile development and ultimately, deliver a critical capability to the warfighter. Our work ensures the U.S. Air Force will have a highly survivable precision strike weapon that will meet current and future mission needs.”

Northrop Grumman Corporation announced on Sep. 25, 2023 that USAF awarded the company an approximately $705 million contract to deliver the SiAW.

SiAW is an air-to-ground strike missile designed to rapidly engage and defeat time-sensitive, high-value threats in contested environments. SiAW expands the target set for the USAF to include heavily defended land targets. The missile is designed using digital engineering and features open architecture interfaces that will allow for rapid subsystem upgrades to field enhanced capabilities. SiAW is part of Northrop Grumman’s broad portfolio of advanced weapons, including armaments, components, missiles, electronics and interceptors.

Platforms for the weapon

The F-35 is the initial platform for the SiAW, and the USAF has indicated the B-21 bomber may also carry the weapon.

Northrop’s SiAW builds on its Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile (AARGM), which in turn succeeds the AGM-88 HARM (High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile). The HARM, which entered service in the 1980s, was used with great effect during Operation Desert Storm by quickly homing in on and destroying ground-based search and track radars before they had a chance to move to a new location. The weapon was so effective that Iraqi radar operators were deterred from turning on their systems, knowing a HARM would likely arrive a few seconds later.

Photo credit: U.S. Air Force and Northrop Grumman