Cobham Air Refuelling & Auxiliary Mission Equipment has been awarded an 18 month development contract by SAAB to integrate the IRIS-T missile onto the division’s launcher for the Gripen aircraft.

The £1.5 million contract covers IRIS-T integration onto the Multi-Missile and NATO Multi-Missile Launchers, provision of type clearance for on C/D models, improvement of BOL countermeasures and a solution for use of Multi-Missile Launchers on NATO pylons.

SAAB will be carrying out flight trials to verify coordination between the guided missile and the Gripen fighter aircraft. SAAB is planning to fire the first shot with IRIS-T in 2007 and the integration process will continue until 2009. The integration of IRIS-T will enhance Gripen’s close combat performance, which is an important component for future international operations

The Multi-Missile Launcher, which is a latest generation launcher, is derived from the division’s 5 decade experience in air-to-air technology and is integrated onto the Gripen platform providing excellent capability for a mixture of short and beyond visual range missiles without need of role change. Additionally the launcher can accommodate a BOL chaff dispenser in the same configuration.

The IRIS-T programme, a 6 nation European industrial consortium led by Germany’s Diehl BGT Defence, is a short range air-to-air missile to replace the AIM-9 Sidewinder. The system combines aerodynamics and thrust control in a tail controlled airframe. It carries a roll-pitch imaging IR seeker with a ± 90 degree look angle and advanced signal processing and is fully compliant with existing analogous Sidewinder and digital aircraft interfaces. Its mass, length, diameter and centre of gravity are also similar to the AIM-9L/M Sidewinder.

Richard Tyson, Managing Director, Cobham Air Refuelling and Auxiliary Mission Equipment, said,

“This milestone reflects the growing range of munitions that the division’s weapons carriage and release equipment has the capability to interface with and strengthens the total wing-tip to wing-tip mission systems that Cobham offers to worldwide platform primes and end users. “