Spectra at the 51st Air Armament Symposium: Advancing mission-critical avionics for modern air superiority
November 13, 2025
Spectra Defense Technologies will join defense leaders at the 51st Air Armament Symposium in Fort Walton Beach, Florida November 18-19. This year’s symposium carries the theme “Accelerating the Delivery of Lethality Through Modernization and Innovation”—a message that resonates deeply with Spectra’s mission.
For Spectra, it’s an opportunity to connect with the people closest to the mission—the ones who understand what works in the field and what needs to change.
Nearly two decades of air superiority support
For 18 years, Spectra has supported F-15C/D and F-15E fleets with weapons and targeting mission systems integration, enabling multi-domain connectivity on fourth-generation aircraft architectures. We’ve helped integrate smarter weapons, targeting, and PNT solutions — and we’ll continue supporting these jets until their final sunset.
Our work extends to the modernized B-52J fleet, where we’re providing avionics, mission systems, and weapons bus recording for enhanced battle damage assessment and mission debrief capabilities. We’re also supporting F-35A/B/C platforms with high-speed, high-capacity data recording for TR-3 mission system flight testing, verifying integration of EW and modern stores.
Looking ahead, we’re supporting future upgrades that will enable integration of nuclear-capable, intelligent, and hypersonic delivery vehicles via modernized and modular storage management processors.
Battle-tested solutions for fighter aircraft
Through its legacy Calculex, Argon and Galleon Embedded Computing businesses, Spectra delivers integrated avionics solutions built for the extreme conditions fighter aircraft face every day.
Calculex brings nearly 40 years of airborne data expertise to fixed- and rotary-wing military platforms. The RIPR family handles digital video recording with in-flight playback, flight data recording with multi-level security, and data bus routing.
Galleon supplies encrypted data recorders that excel in compactness and performance, interfacing with multiple Gigabit Ethernet sources while maintaining SWaP-C optimization. The rugged mission computers support UAV and surveillance applications with advanced security features protecting sensitive data across the aircraft’s full lifecycle.
Argon has supported critical defense programs for 35 years with rugged displays and computing solutions, including 21.3″ displays for the E-3 AWACS program and compact computers for unmanned systems.
Built for the harshest installations
Integrating new technologies into existing air platforms presents unique challenges. When new hardware needs installation for mission expansion, the available space often includes gun bays, pods and wing pylons — locations that demand extreme ruggedness.
“Integrating new technologies presents a unique challenge as the airframe was optimized at first design to be as efficient as possible,” says Dan Eckiss, Business Development Lead at Spectra. “Spectra’s rugged hardware solutions survive all these locations, providing the U.S. Government and primes an option to modernize without sacrifice and additional cost of avionics modifications.”
Our business units have partnered with both Eglin AFB and Hurlburt Field on numerous weapons systems integrations, providing federated interfaces between platform avionics and mission systems required for rapid prototype integration and full-fleet fielding.
From capture to display: The complete data continuum
Fighter aircraft generate massive amounts of data from sensors, weapons systems, communications and flight operations. Spectra’s integrated approach spans the entire data continuum — from acquisition and recording to processing, routing, storage and display.
This end-to-end capability means systems work together as they should. A Calculex data acquisition unit feeding a Galleon encrypted recorder, connected to an Argon rugged display, with all components engineered to survive the same harsh environments. No gaps. No compatibility questions. Just reliable performance when the mission demands it.
Positioned for emerging requirements
“The USAF CCA program, U.S. Army MUMT, and various other initiatives to connect manned aircraft to intelligent weapons fits squarely into Spectra’s technology capabilities,” says Eckiss.
Our advanced solutions include onboard NSA-certified encrypted storage of networked data from offboard assets received via tactical data link and RF telemetry, airborne processing of high-speed EW signals for real-time threat awareness and optimized strike paths, and modular displays designed for rapid capability expansion to deliver situational awareness and edge processing.
Recent advancements among Spectra business units include high-speed fiber optic networking, NSA-certified encryption with Type 1 encryption options, and airborne displays with 10 times the contrast ratio of any available panel on the market — all enabling integration of modern airborne stores and targeting systems.
Built for the long haul
Military platforms are being asked to perform their mission for 30, 40, even 80 years for the B-52. While each platform has a regular block upgrade schedule, these intervals greatly lag consumer and industrial electronics lifecycles.
Spectra specializes in lifecycle management that maintains hardware configurations for 10-plus years through supply chain management, stocking, and F3I redesign — while keeping pace with firmware and software updates to ensure security and compatibility. Our competency in MIL-STD qualification of customized LRUs enables rapid safety-of-flight determinations and future airworthiness approvals for fleet integration.
Looking ahead
The symposium’s focus on modernization and innovation aligns with challenges our customers face every day. How do you integrate new capabilities with legacy systems? How do you increase lethality while reducing size, weight and power? How do you maintain security in increasingly complex electromagnetic environments?
These aren’t theoretical questions. They’re the problems our engineering teams work through with program managers, test pilots, and maintenance crews — the kind of collaboration that happens best in person.
Spectra offers hardware and software solutions to help expedite the integration of new weapons systems, along with Government contracts to facilitate acquisition.
We’re looking forward to the conversations at the Air Armament Symposium. Please stop by and say hello — we will be exhibiting with our sales partners from AeroGear Telemetry.