UK-based BAE Systems Avionics has announced that Kuwait has selected the company's Helicopter Integrated Defensive Aids System (HIDAS) for installation aboard its AH-64D Longbow Apache battlefield attack helicopters.
Alongside the equipment itself, the deal involves a comprehensive training and support package that includes integration of the system into a Longbow Apache crew trainer that is being supplied to the Kuwaiti Air Force. The overall package is understood to form part of the US Foreign Military Sales effort under which Boeing is supplying Kuwait with the AH-64.
The HIDAS configuration being supplied to Kuwait is the same as that being fitted to the British Army's Apache AH.1 attack helicopter. As such, the suite is described as being an integrated modular equipment that incorporates the BAE Systems Avionics' Sky Guardian 2000 radar warning receiver (RWR) and Series 1223 laser warning receiver (LWR), the BAE Systems North America AN/AAR-57(V) Common Missile Warning System (CMWS) and a Thales Optronics (Vinten) Vicon 78 Series 455 CounterMeasures Dispensing System (CMDS).
Of these, the Sky Guardian 2000 RWR covers the 0.5 to 40.0 GHz frequency range and houses (in its electronics unit) the suite's controller. The HIDAS LWR's processors are housed in the system's Data Transfer Unit (DTU), as are those for its CMDS. For its part, the CMDS features dedicated chaff (64 shots each magazine) and infra-red decoy flare (32 each magazine) dispensing modules, while the heads for the suite's LWR, CMWS and RWR are located in such a way as to provide 360° coverage in azimuth.
The previously cited DTU is the medium by which the system receives necessary pre-flight messages, with data being loaded using a standard 40 MB PCMCIA card.