Radionix ready to fly Omut-KM self-protection jammer

The Kiev-based Ukrainian company Radionix has completed a preliminary series of ground trials with its new Omut-KM airborne pod-mounted self-defence jammer, and is planning to begin flight-tests by the end of 2012.

The system is intended to protect aircraft from surface- or air-launched missiles that rely on active or semi-active seekers.

Omut (which translates as 'whirl' or 'vortex') is intended to replace the elderly Soviet-era L-203 Gardeniya airborne jamming system, which does not have the functionality and reliability needed for modern combat operations.

Export variants of the Su-27 'Flanker' were previously equipped with a two-podded external installation of the L-203 Gardeniya jammer designed by the Moscow-based Scientific Research Institute of Radio Technology (TsNIRTI), while the MiG-29 'Fulcrum' used the L-203B internally mounted variant. From the start of its programme to develop a Gardeniya replacement, Radionix envisaged that the system would be pod-mounted.

Following earlier studies and development work on what was designated the Omut-K (K = Kontaynerniy = Containerised), company engineers re-evaluated their proposed design and since 2010 have been working on a radically redesigned version that for all practical purposes is a new design.