Blue Vixen

Blue Vixen was a British airborne radar designed and built for the Royal Navy by Ferranti Defence Systems (later, GEC-Marconi), Edinburgh, Scotland.

Blue Vixen was a lightweight (145 kg) multimode, coherent, pulse-Doppler I band airborne radar, developed from the previous Ferranti Blue Fox radar, and designed for use on the British Aerospace Sea Harrier FA2.

It was a multimode radar for airborne interception and air-to-surface strike roles over water and land, with look-down/shoot-down and look-up modes.

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.

Blue Vixen trials aircraft ZF130 owned by Allaero at MOD St Athan 2002