…and what part of that doesn’t apply to the Typhoon, or Rafale, or any other high-end jet for that matter? The F-35’s price is currently inflated due to the early stage of production it is in, but when all is said and done it will cost similar or less than aircraft like the Typhoon, Rafale, etc.

Which isn’t a flattering thing when you consider the difference in numbers to be produced in the different prgrams…

UK PM blasted for hawking jets to India

Anti-arms campaigners have criticized British Prime Minister David Cameron who is pushing to sell jets to India during his three-day trip to the Asian country.

Will AESA radars become Spoof-Proof and are we there yet?

Here is the premise: If there is enough computing power on the radar’s backend to change the pulse pattern for each and every pulse, then:
1. Will an ESM ever be able to produce a return “spoof” signal fast enough to cause confusion?
2. Since each pulse is different, what pattern can the ESM lock onto in order to spoof?
3. Computing power will always be on the side of the radar since it can dedicate it’s power to known pulse patters and expected returns. Target ESM systems have to deal with every EM signal it receives.

Here are some speed calculations:
1. If an AESA can produce 1000 pulses per second
2. The distance a EM wave travels in 1/1000th of a second is 186 miles.
3. So, assuming that jammer can respond to a signal is another 1/1000th of a second then the spoof location will be an additional 93 miles away from the target than it actually is.

Simplistic, I know…

Not only generating so many frequencies in so close an space will likely generate EM interferences on the radar it would make each T/R act as a single antenna and I doubt they would have each enough power to see very far. Each signals would have to be received and separated by the computer… I can’t think of a software enginneer that would want to write such a program lol.

However in regard to what you’re talking about I believe LM is working on a quantum radar that should in theory be jamming proof.

low power in each frequency but total power still high

No. As I said (and thanks Mercurius for saying it better than I was able to), while it’s in theory possible to make the AESA radar use more than one type of output, in practice, it’s very unlikely. More, the variation would be very slim.

What’s more likely to happen when in LPI mode is that the Radar will send small bursts changing frequencies, magnitude and pattern so as not to be previsible, making it harder to be detected at longer ranges. It’ll also be able to avoid broadcasting in a wide area decreasing the chances of being intercepted by more hostile ELINT systems.

read what i wrote careful again :confused: , iam not talking about the radar of F-35 , i was explain why it be easier for F-22 and F-35 ( compared to gen 4 , 4.5 aircraft ) to detect enemy’s AESA by RWR before they get detected themselves ( because they are stealth so the distance that the enemy can see them by radar be shorter => stronger signal => easier for them to distinguish between noise and the real signal from enemy radar by contrast non stealth aircraft dont have that advantages , so they may be detected , track by AESA radar at long distance before their RWR know that )

Maybe we’re not using the right words to describe what we want to say, because as far as I know, an AESA radar is an AESA radar and a RWR is a RWR no matter whether you put it in a 2nd, 4th or 5th gen airframe. If you broadcast, even in LPI, you’ll likely be picked up by RWR beyong the useful range of the radar no matter what airframe you’re using.

A 4th gen flying passively will detect and active 5th gen first, a 5th gen flying passively will detect a active 4th gen first, an active 4th gen and an active 5th gen will detect each other based on each other RWR’s sensibility and support available, and a passive 4th gen flying against a passive 5th gen will only detect each other at BVR if they’ve got support or if they’ve got IRST.

Then detecting an aircraft doesn’t mean you can shoot it down, if you want to avoid it then you’ve got to decide whether or not you’ll have enough fuel to take a longer route and get back home or cancell the mission right away (assuming you want to risk showing your far less stealthy behind).

this is true but doesnot mean much here , i will explain why below

hum…

1-refraction have nothing to do here ( i now what you mean but it simply will not going to make DRFM work better or your aircraft be more stealth )
2-“Electromagnetic waves properties will change depending on the medium they’re travelling in.”
even if the speed of the wave affected by RAM it will only be slow down when it traveling in the RAM material , in the other word once the wave coming back in air it will go with original speed

EM waves behave differently depending on the type of surfaces they enter into contact with, which is why 4.5+/5th gen are using shaping + RAM to lower their RCS. Refraction plays an important role here since the shapes and materials used will be selected to optimized its effect making DRFM’s work easier and more effective. If you add the possible global cancellation effect, then you may be able to lower your RCS quite a bit.

I wasn’t saying that the EM waves would be travelling back into the air slower, but because it took longer for the wave to go through the RAM which also absorb most of its magnitude, the object will appear smaller reducing the aircraft EM’s spikes.

what you said before :

this is completely wrong because
1-yes the wave speed affected by the medium it traveling in , if it travel in vacuum it be faster than in air , if it travel in air it be faster than in water …etc but that doesnot mean the wave keep the speed from the medium that it was traveling before ( read it carefully before you reply)
2- let me make an example :
+ speed of radio wave in air is about 299704644.53915 metres per second it is about 3*10^8 meter per second
+let assume the RAM of rafale can slow down the wave by 100 times the the speed of the wave is now 3*10^6 meter per second ( quite unrealistic as normally you can only slow the wave down by half )
+let assume the RAM thickness of rafale is 1 meter ( also unrealistic unless the rafale is as big as a destroyer this never going to happened )
+ so the time that the wave spend inside the RAM layer before coming back to air medium will be : 2/(3*10^6 ) = 6.6*10^(-7 ) = 0.0000006 seconds
=> even with super RAM , and unrealistic thick RAM layer there is no way that you can slow down the enemy’s radar wave enough to give ” ESM system plenty of time to calculate and emit a signal ” ;):D
Remember that RAM on aircraft are very very thin 1-2 mm thick , and radar wave will not travel through them but either get absorb or coming back so your theory about using RAM to slow down radar wave to give ESM system enough time to calculate is quite nonsense :p

I assume here that most of the main characteristics of the enemy’s radars are known and already inside the ESM library. Military intelligence agencies spend days, months, years collecting these kind of things using a variety of vectors. Space based assets are extremely valuable in such a thing, and I don’t know of any country that would go to war without having such data.
So when I talk about “calculating”, I’m talking about data that are available in the library. If you can “slow down” and dissipate most of the radar’s wave coming at you, then you should have enough time to “adapt” your ESM system and broadcast on the same frequency. You don’t need to match every bursts, only as much as possible.

See it that way. You stand on a field in darkness and using a torch (emitter) you use your eyes (reciever) to track someone running toward you in a unpredictable pattern. Your torch keeps dying on you at unpredictable intervals . How well and how far will you be able to use your eyeballs to predict the position of the person running toward you?

There are some references of refractive indices for different materials (the higher the number the slower light travels in it):

Vacuum 1.000000
Air 1.000293
Water 1.3330
Ice 1.31
Glass 1.5 – 1.75
NaCl 1.5
Cubic zirconia 2.1

Given the nature of composite materials in use today, and what I think I know about RAM (carbon based), I would put the refractive indice between 1.5 to 2.1 (speculation).

1-DRFM will not going to affect the medium around the aircraft
2-yes DRFM can create interference however unless your whole aircraft is a giant antenna that transmit signal from all over place then it will be effective , otherwise even destructive interference will not mean much because the amount of wave you can interfere by that method is too little :rolleyes:

Again the desired effect isn’t invisibility. Rather it’s to get one similar to what happen when you place a pencil inside a glass of water.
1.You can use your ESM to create a EM field that will create a destructive interference (global cancellation).
2.You only need to be able to transmit in such a manner of creating a bubble around the aircraft. What you want to achieve depends on the mission profile.

It might be way harder to achieve full “surprise” or LO, but you can certainly make it tough for the enemy to shoot you down. Bottom line it’s all about the end result.

not really because broadcast noise jamming also make yourself a targets for ELINTS system they dont see you by radar but see , track you by RWR

They certainly know you’re there somewhere, but to track you by RWR… that’s another story. And again, IRST systems aren’t becoming standard for nothing.

like i said many time before , it not really important whether enemy detected them or not , the important thing is at how far

Aircraft like the F-117, B-2 and the F-35 are built under the assumption they won’t be detected at all. That assumption has been slightly reduced on the latter hence the very strong ESM system, but the fact is EM emissions will always be detected.
Once detected the stealth aircraft loses most of its advantages and in the case of the 3 aircraft above, they’re going to have a really hard time getting out without support.

Now of course the F-35 with very low RCS and a strong ESM can be a good asset in the EW, but its lacks much of everything else to bring that advantage home.
It isn’t a affordable replacement of the F-16 (which could at least explain its lack of performances vs the F-15), on performances the jury is still out, most weapons will become more expansive too because they’ll have to be adapted to internal carriage, they’ll have also less strenght in AtA because saying you can fly up to Mach 1.6 doesn’t say how quickly you regain energy to Mach 1.6 while manoeuvering, and saying that it doesn’t have too won’t solve the problem…
Even US generals admits maintenance on a stealth aircraft is more costly, and we still don’t know how much for the F-35…

So you’re replacing your F-16 with an aircraft that cost way more than a F-15 when you know that you had to build more F-16 that you didn’t even want to begin with because you couldn’t afford as many F-15 yet at a age where costs weren’t as much as a big deal as today?! It makes perfect sense…