the 27-foot (8 meters) long, canoe-shaped radome under the forward fuselage of the hosting aircraft. The radar and computer information systems on the E-8C gather and display detailed battlefield information on ground forces. The information is relayed in near-real time to the ground stations and to other ground command, control, communications, computers and intelligence, or C4I, nodes. The antenna of AN/APY-3 is tilted to either side of the aircraft where it has a 120-degree field of view covering nearly 19,305 square miles (50,000 square kilometers), and is capable of detecting targets at more than 250 kilometers (more than 820,000 feet). The radar also has some limited capability to detect helicopters, rotating antennas and low, slow-moving fixed wing aircraft. A total of 1000 ground targets can be simultaneously tracked by AN/APY-3. AN/APY-6 The X-band AN/APY-6 is a derivative of AN/APY-3, and it is based on fiber-optic ethernet LAN. The radar has SAR, Inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) and ground moving target indication (GMTI) modes. The resolution in strip SAR mode is 6 ft, while in SAR and ISAR mode, the best resolution is 1 ft. AN/APY-6 has a total of four parallel receivers, with one for GMTI, and three for various SAR/ISAR modes. The planar passive phased array antenna can be either point forward or abeam, with coverage of 200 degree arc, and a maximum range of 200 km. AN/APY-6 is designed for precision target striking, and an AESA version is currently under development. AN/APY-7 AN/APY-7 is the development of AN/APY-3, and it is a solid state version of AN/APY-3 that adopts active electronically scanned array technology. AN/APY-7 radar can operate in fixed target indication (FTI), wide area surveillance, synthetic aperture radar (SAR), target classification and ground moving target indicator (GMTI) modes. An antenna is installed on the underside of the aircraft, which can be tilted for a 120 degree to either side of the plane to cover targets at more than 152 miles (250 km). The 7.3 m (24 ft) long, 0.6 m (2 ft) wide side-looking AESA antenna s housed in a 12 m (40 ft) canoe-shaped radome under the forward fuselage of the hosting aircraft along the center line. As with AN/APY-3, AN/APY-7 is electronically steered in azimuth by phase shifters, and mechanically in elevation by two servo motors. References Aircraft radars Military electronics of the United States Radars of the United States Air Force Synthetic aperture radar