Raytheon Produce AMRAAMs for Saudi Arabia, S.Korea, Qatar

Raytheon Missiles and Defense has won a contract valued $518 million to produce AMRAAM missiles to ten countries including Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Qatar.

This contract involves unclassified Foreign Military Sales (FMS) to Bulgaria, Canada, Denmark, Indonesia, Japan, Portugal, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Slovakia and South Korea.

The deal provides for the production of the Lot 34 AMRAAMs, Captive Air Training Missiles (CATMs), guidance sections, AMRAAM Telemetry System (ATS), initial and field spares, and other production engineering support hardware and activities.

Work will be performed in Tucson, Arizona, and is expected to be completed Dec. 31, 2023.

The Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) is an American beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile (BVRAAM). Designed with a 7-inch (180mm) diameter form-and-fit factor, and employing active transmit-receive radar guidance instead of semi-active receive-only radar guidance, it has the advantage of being a fire-and-forget weapon when compared to the previous generation Sparrow missiles.

This missile has been integrated onto the F-15A/B/C/D/E Eagle/Strike Eagle, F-16 Fighting Falcon, F/A-18 Super Hornet, F-22 Raptor, Eurofighter Typhoon, JAS-39 Gripen, Tornado and Harrier. The newest version of AMRAAM is operational on all F-35 Joint Strike Fighter variants. It is the only radar-guided, air-to-air missile cleared to fly on the F-35.

U.S. company Sikorsky also won $100 million earlier this week to build 25 UH-60 Black Hawk rotorcraft to Saudi Arabia.

Read: U.S. Arms Sales to Middle East Ballooned During Yemen War

These contracts to Saudi Arabia come after the White House pulled the plug on the deals with the country in January, including $300 million for munitions and $31 billion for cruise missiles. Opponents of the deal criticize Saudi Arabia for its involvement in the Yemen War, a conflict described by the United Nations as one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters.