When the aircraft entered service in 1972, it carried the largest
ranged fighter radar and air-to-air missles in the world. A recoard
which remains vaild almost two decades later. Two improvments were
devised in the early 1980's. One was a new suite of avionics,
inculding an APG-71 radar, and Infa-Red search and tracking (IRST)
chin sensors, the Advanced Self-Protection Jammer, the ALR-67
threat-warning system and a JTIPS data link. The other replacements
of the TF30 engines with the higher-thrust General Electric F110.
