__NOTOC__ Blue Vixen was a British airborne

radar Radar is a system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), direction ( azimuth and elevation angles), and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It is a radiodetermination method used to detect and track ...

designed and built for the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...

by Ferranti Defence Systems (later, GEC-Marconi),

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

, Scotland. It was the primary radar of later models of the

British Aerospace Sea Harrier The British Aerospace Sea Harrier is a naval short take-off and vertical landing/ vertical take-off and landing jet fighter, reconnaissance and attack aircraft. It is the second member of the Harrier family developed. It first entered serv ...

, replacing the Ferranti Blue Fox used on earlier models of the Harrier.

Design and development

Blue Vixen was a lightweight (145 kg) multimode, coherent, pulse-Doppler I band

airborne radar An airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) system is an airborne radar early warning system designed to detect aircraft, ships, vehicles, missiles and other incoming projectiles at long ranges, as well as performing command and control of t ...

, developed from the previous Ferranti Blue Fox radar, and designed for use on the

FA2. It was a multimode radar for airborne interception and air-to-surface strike roles over water and land, with

look-down/shoot-down A radar system has look-down/shoot-down capability if it can detect, track and guide a weapon to an air target that (as seen by the radar) is silhouetted against the ground. Problem and naming Airborne intercept radar relying exclusively on time ...

and look-up modes. Designed from the start to have full

AIM-120 AMRAAM The AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) ( ) is an American Beyond-visual-range missile, beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile capable of all-weather day-and-night operations. It uses active transmit-receive radar guidance ...

compatibility, it was also compatible with

Sea Eagle A sea eagle or fish eagle (also called erne or ern, mostly in reference to the white-tailed eagle) is any of the birds of prey in the subfamily Haliaeetinae of the bird of prey family Accipitridae. Ten extant species exist, currently described w ...

and

AIM-9 Sidewinder The AIM-9 Sidewinder is a short-range air-to-air missile. Entering service with the United States Navy in 1956 and the Air Force in 1964, the AIM-9 is one of the oldest, cheapest, and most successful air-to-air missiles. Its latest variants rema ...

missiles.

Development aircraft used

Blue Vixen trials aircraft owned by Allaero

Two

British Aerospace 125 The British Aerospace 125 is a twinjet mid-size business jet. Originally developed by de Havilland and initially designated as the DH.125 Jet Dragon, it entered production as the Hawker Siddeley HS.125, which was the designation used until 19 ...

aircraft were used for the flight trial's program. The first (XW930 serial number 25009) was a Series 1 aircraft which had previously been used by the CAFU (Civil Aviation Flying Unit) before it was absorbed into the

Royal Aircraft Establishment The Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) was a British research establishment, known by several different names during its history, that eventually came under the aegis of the Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom), UK Ministry of Defence (MoD), bef ...

. It was equipped with a modified nose and carried out the initial development work. This was joined by the dedicated trials aircraft (a series 600 serial number 256059 registered ZF130), fitted with a replica of the Sea Harrier cockpit at the co-pilot's station as well as a Sidewinder acquisition round on a pylon beneath the starboard wing.

Aircraft fitted to

F(A).2

Operators

; *

References

*{{cite web, title=Blue Vixen radar (United Kingdom), url=http://articles.janes.com/articles/Janes-Avionics/Blue-Vixen-radar-United-Kingdom.html, work=Jane's Avionics, publisher=

Jane's Janes is a global open-source intelligence company specialising in military, national security, aerospace and transport topics, whose name derives from British author Fred T. Jane. History Jane's Information Group was founded in 1898 by Fred ...

, accessdate=7 December 2011, date=7 January 2004, archive-date=9 May 2012, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120509203847/http://articles.janes.com/articles/Janes-Avionics/Blue-Vixen-radar-United-Kingdom.html, url-status=dead Aircraft radars Ferranti Military radars of the United Kingdom Military equipment introduced in the 1990s Rainbow code

Design and development

Development aircraft used

Aircraft fitted to

Operators

See also

References