AESA capability

I know that AESA is supposed to be a major advance in radar tech but being able to detect patterns on ones lawn left by your lawnmower? incredible if true.

Pentagon Budget Squeeze Narrows Opportunities for Industry)

By David A. Fulghum and Amy Butler, Aviation Week & Space Technology, 2 October, 2006

America’s top aerospace managers are predicting that a $10-12 billion per year “tax” or deduction from next year’s defense budgets of both the U.S. Air Force and Navy—in order to rebuild the Army’s war fighting capability—will slash acquisition, drive up the cost of surviving programs and leave only a few new areas for them to compete over for new business.

One of the primary targets for the cutting is expected to be the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter, which aerospace officials outside Lockheed Martin predict could rise in unit cost in five years, to $85-100 million each from the current $46-56 million (depending on the variant). They view the JSF program as technically untroubled, but believe that congressional interference will continue to trim yearly production and stretch out the program, which is almost guaranteed to increase cost. “The production rate is king—keeping it up is everything,” says an aerospace official whose company could profit from disruption in Lockheed Martin’s JSF program.

Those competitors see opportunity in a JSF cost rise. Some believe it would force the Air Force to reconsider upgrades or new production of its existing fourth-generation fighters. Key initiatives would include introducing F-22 and F-35-type active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars and advanced electronic warfare systems into F-15s and F-16s to match those in the Navy’s F/A-18E/F and EA-18G fleet. The F-35’s APG-81 radar has demonstrated it has the resolution to pick out cracks in a runway and patterns left in grass by a lawn mower while overlaying such detailed imagery with moving targets. Air Combat Command chief Gen. Ronald Keys says he wants to provide AESA radars for 178 F-15Cs as well as the F-15E Strike Eagle fleet. …….