Would letting Lockheed Martin or Boeing integrate an indigenously developed weapon into F-16 or F/A-18 would always leak the weapon’s sensitive information to the Americans?

…..

Here are some questions:

Who did IRIS-T integration work on the Norwegian F-16s? Was there any “leak” of the IRIS-T’s sensitive information to the Americans?

How about the ASRAAM on the Australian F/A-18s, the AMRAAM on the Eurofighter Typhoon and the Swedish Gripen?

Cheers,
Sunho

I’m no expert but as far as I know integrating WVR missiles on an aircraft used to be pretty straight forward since it didn’t require a lot of electronics to be installed in the parent aircraft. The Pakistanis for example integrated Sidewinders Chinese F-6 fighters without much difficulty and Israel apparently integrated Russian made R-3 Sidewinder clones captured form the Egyptians into French Mirage III fighters. More sophisticated installations slaved the IR sensor in the missile to the aircraft’s radar which obviously was more difficult than the basic Sidewinder installations in something like an F-6 or an F-86 Saber. I’m not sure whether this task has become more difficult than it used to be. Modern IR guided WVR missiles are slaved to a helmet mounted sight which increases the complexity of the installation process. I’d expect a country with the technical knowhow to develop an indigenous WVR missile would also have the ability to integrate it on an American aircraft without the help of the Americans but normally there would be some sort of suitably paranoid arrangement going on between the Americans and the missile developer that ensured the required security level while still allowing reasonably smooth cooperation. There can however be legal issues, concerning the aircraft. There are for example some systems on your F-16 that you have to bring in American technical staff to do work on. You are not allowed to touch these systems your self. These restrictions apply to countries that bought their F-16s with American defense aid. I don’t know to what extent the Norwegians are allowed to modify their F-16. The Norwegians probably bought their F-16s outright without American financial handouts which may give them more control.

This is one of (absurd) arguments for developing an indigenous fighter aircraft into which indigenous weapons would be integrated.

One reason people are reluctant to do business with the Americans or European countries is that they are happy to sell you weapons but the moment you try to use them you are hit with sanctions, the spares and weapons supply dries up and there is no more support or training. The Russians and Chinese tend to have fewer scruples but dealing with them still makes you politically dependent. If there is a good argument for indigenous fighter designs it’s precisely freedom from dependence on another country would it IMHO. Of course developing your own fighter is hugely expensive these days. So most independent minded countries make due with manufacturing as much of their own air-to-air and air-to-ground weapons as possible and try to be as independent as possible when it comes to operating, reparing, overhauling and even upgrading and rebuilding their aircraft which they increasingly rarely draw from western sources.

As an example he can shoot down an aircraft at BVR distances without having to switch on his own radar.

I haven’t studied the Typhoon in detail so please bear with me here… How can the Typhoon pilot do that? I don’t think that even cutting edge IR missiles have that kind of range yet. The only alternative I can think of is that the Typhoon uses third party supplied information to provide mid-course target updates to an MBDA Meteor, AIM-120 or some other similar missile. If that’s the case it’s certainly a nifty feature. One of the things I like the most about the Typhoon is the set of sensors it has, the PIRATE IRTS in particular is interesting. I have always wondered, how efficient is it (range) and how does it do in a heavily clouded environment? Theoretically if the PIRATE sensor’s range was great enough one could use the PIRATE to provide mid-course updates to an IR missile thus extending it’s range but using fully passive sensors. Except for the update transmissions there would be no telltale radio transmissions. Perhaps that’s an impractical idea?

Does this help a little?

It certainly was interesting to read. 🙂

WOW!

I’m speechless…….

What all does the model do? I mean is it a flying one or do you drive it around or is it just for looks with a few features? I’ve never seen anything like this…..

This model looks like it is meant to be flown… I have seen some wierd RC models including a giant four engined WWII bomber with four chain-saw engines, a fully functional (i.e. in-flight seperating) Mistel fying bomb combo and fully functional jets. This thing, however, is in a league of it’s own. Some RC modelers take the hobby to the point where one wonders if they are insane. Of course it wouldn’t be any fun if they didn’t do that so I can’t blame them, especially since I am planning to build an small airplane in my garage some day which is a form of the same insanity :D.

Depends on which MiG-21 you are talking about. The early ones, the ones with the -F, -FL, -PF, etc,. in their designations handle the best. The later ones, with the -MF and -bis, are trickier to fly, but has more power and better radar options. The J-7s are a different matter and has to be discussed seperately.

The interesting thing is that all three, the F-7B/M, MiG-21PF/MF/bis and F-5A/E took part in 1980-88 war between Iran and Iraq. According to the ACIG victory lists the Iranian F-5s and the Iraqi MiG-21s engaged in combat during this conflict, I’m not sure about the Iraqi F-7 fleet.

edit edit..

I’m a perfectionist… 😀

Thanks!! I will start with the Mi-8

I’m not really into modern Military aviation. My interest begins to taper off after the 1970s except for small modern air forces (I come here for the small airforces picture thread 😀 ) and stealth technology. There are probably better examples than the ones I cited but I imagine the Mil Mi-8 should make a good start. I’m pretty sure it was never intended to be a gun-ship by it’s designers. The Rhodesians also make a good study in do-it-your-self-on-a-budget combat aircraft procurement under a UN arms embargo. They converted Cessna Skymaster utility planes into COIN aircraft and the Aerospatiale Alouette III utility choppers as gun-ships. They built their own ELINT aircraft to monitor insurgent radio communications out of an old DC-3 using AFAIK commercially available radio equipment. When they got their hands on real military trainers or powerful military choppers these were usually preferred to the before mentioned types because these were superior for their purposes. The Rhodesians converted eight SF.260W trainers to SF.260TP standard by fitting them with a turboprop and used them as COIN aircraft. They also went through considerable trouble and expense to refurbish a batch of Augusta-Bell 205 military helicopters most others would have scrapped because they were better gun-ships than the Alouettes. The Rhodesians also designed and manufactured alot of their own air dropped munitions them selves, from scratch.

Are you shure? Unmarked planes. Where is the evidence?

These look a lot like the Su-24 aircraft depicted on page 21 of the February 2007 issue of AFM, right down to the background setting. In that article it was claimed these Su-24s were being handed over to the RuAF after modernization to Su-24M2 standard along with their first two Su-34 bombers. Curiously the Su-34s were marked and had tactical numbers: Red 01 and Red 02, but only one of the four Su-24s was marked and it is missing from these shots. The location was given as the Chkalov Aircraft Production Association Factory in Novosibirsk.