November 6, 2009 at 5:46 pm
With the advent of the IRST (OSF, PIRATE, OLSx, whatever the US are going to get), long range target detection is achieavable in a stealth manner. However my understanding is that you need a laser range finder to be able to get a firing solution.
I suppose that it would be more discreet to use the radar to get the range of the target. A very very short “ping” on a randomly chosen and varrying frequency would probably go unnoticed by the target RWR. Much more so that other radar modes (track, scan, lock) which are reputedly LPI.
So the question is: is there a stealthy radar “range only” mode in modern radars?
Subsidiary question: can the 360° AESA antennas of the Rafale’s SPECTRA suite have a rangeing function as well as a jamming function, to allow for targeting in 360° without use of the radar or LRF? Is there any plane that is capable of doing that?
Nic