Scorpion82I think you are right there. In the WVR arena Rafale is dominating. I slightly better at BVR (SPECTRA, RCS) and hugely superior in the WVR arena. Which means it is superior overall.
Lol “hugely” superior. Let me guess Solenzara is the one and ultimate universal truth. Typhoon never stands a chance at all against the piece of magic pixie dust called Rafale which is leagues ahead, a generation above and superior across the board in comparison to this utter flawed piece of crap called Eurofighter isn’t it. :rolleyes:
Scorpion82Some thoughts on the recent discussions…
1) Geo-locating an airborne emitter is easier said than done. Geo-locating a fixed ground based emitter is one thing as you can triangulate the non moving emitter more easily and taking the angle of arrival and possibly terrain elevation data from the TAWS/GPWS into account may help you further. An airborne emitter is moving quickly, however, and it can manoeuvre and change its course and you don’t necessarily know where within the radars scan arc you are. This is even more complicated at long ranges when movements of the emitter cause rather marginal angle deviations. So you know that radar type X is emitter from that direction and you may know that it is far away possibly at least at X km. What you don’t know is whether the opposing radar has detected you already and possibly it’s even tracking you. So the radar equipped aircraft enjoys the advantage of information superiority.
The only way to geo-locate an airborne emitter with sufficient accuracy is multiship geo-location and whether that’s implemented already is questionable.
2.) Trying to somehow fly around the enemies radar coverage is easier said than done as well. It may work against less powerful, slow scanning radars with limited coverage and even better when you are flying a truly stealthy aircraft like the F-22 which may supercruise and is subsequently able to change its relative position more quickly. Flying a not truly stealthy aircraft against a powerful AESA radar with a wide field of regard is certainly much more difficult.
3.) Does offers a range finding capability, but it’s not able to geo-locate ground based emitters with sufficient accuracy to target them. But it locates them with sufficient accuracy to be aware of them and avoid them.
Scorpion82@Shiv
IMO you are looking at this issue (range performance/power) from a very narrow fielded point of view. Detecting your enemy at great distances gives you the freedom to make decisions and take actions early on, whether it culminates in an engagement or the avoidance of a threat. In cooperative attacks one aircraft might simply stay in the rearward hemisphere of aircraft flying passively and directing the other fighters towards the targets, an AWACS or GCI might be able to do this in close proximity to the frontline, but not deep over hostile territory. Performance against low RCS targets is being improved and the radars ability to discriminate and identify targets at longer range is an considerable advantage. Generating high resolution radar maps at long distances can help to engage ground targets with stand-off weapons in a dynamic target process. On top of this such a powerful radar may deal with enemy jammers more easily or might be used as a directional jammer for electronic attack itself, which with brute force may even physically damage some radar systems. Allocating sufficient power to multiple beams to perform multiple tasks with sufficient power at the same time is another advantage. There are many ways to take advantage of a powerful radar of that kind! To play down and talk away all this with the “it doesn’t need the range when the weapon can’t match it” argument is rather narrow minded and ignorant towards the true benefits such a system can deliver. Add that future weapons might be able to match this range and you can consider it as future proof.
Scorpion82Aren’t the UK and France planning to develop an ASRAAM & MICA IR successor? That might be the reason why there is no IR version of the Meteor planned. A MICA IR like weapon with some more advanced technologies, maybe more than just an IR seeker and with a bi-directional datalink plus INS/GPS, robust stand-off range, but still high agility would be an ideal weapon to complement Meteor IMO.
Scorpion82That could be unwize in the medium/short range. HMD with FLIR may help you detect and cue weapon within visual range , but it is better yet to have the weapon scan, track and lock itself on target.
Cueing a missile is much quicker and you can lock onto the target you want. Leavin everything to the missile is possible, but if there are multiple contacts you better ensure you lock onto the right target which isn’t necessarily a given if the seeker is doing search and acquisition on its own. It will take longer as well and is less well suited for high off boresight target acquisition. The missile seeker will ultimately lock on the target anyway.
Scorpion821st generation AESA radars were less mature and there are inherent limitations to the fixed array opposed to a movable one. Technology has advanced since then and the repositioner in this or that form is mitigating the issues encountered by earlier systems i.e. performance at the edges of the gimbals, albeit the problem would still be present at extreme angles which can’t be covered by the M-Scan anyway. The overall advantages an AESA brings to the table are overwhelming in sum. If there is a reason for keeping the current Captor it’s first and foremost owed to the costs of retrofitting and the fact that the radar is still good and sufficient for many tasks at hand. Feel free to elaborate on your claims, which are rather fishy here anyway.
Scorpion82There’s no physical reason that you couldn’t retrofit an AESA to a T1 jet (the original CAESAR demonstrator was a DA, which is some way back from even T1 standards) but I doubt that they’d ever get funding to do it, unless it could be proven to be a spend to save measure.
But said DA was heavily g-restricted according some owed to the fact that its nose structure wasn’t reinforced to accommodate the radar without restrictions. I also can’t see any area where the M-Scan variant would offer better performance or capabilities than the Captor-E with its repositioner, other than maturity of the software and modes which is a temporary issue.
Scorpion82And still the system integration gives Rafale the edge compared to the other plane.
Whether the discrepancy in that field is that big these days is questionable, though the Rafale may still enjoy an edge.
Scorpion82RBE-ASEA, might be smaller and fixed but it is there (First production Rafale with the radar, C137, has been delivered to the Air Force for validation trials) AFAIK, Captor-E in its early form (no repositioner, no ECM) will not be delivered before 2015… and the complete version is not expected until 2018, at best…
Captor-E will be fitted with a re-positioner from the very beginning. The Captor-E without re-positioner stems from a time when the system configuration wasn’t finalised. As far as modes and capabilities are concerned these are software driven and will be implemented over time, just as is the case with most avionics these days.
Despite what Shiv stated, ECM and larger aperture is being studied for the Rafale aesa array. The only difference is that this array is not limited to the nose anymore but seen as the merging of spectra and RBE-2 arrays. IMHO, that’s a much elegant/smart way to manage active detection/jamming than to have separate entities which will be more tricky to managed efficiently.
That’s an interesting long term prospect, but don’t underestimate the efforts required to effectively integrate multiple distributed arrays into a “single system”.
As far as IRST is concerned, I’ quite confident now, that the long range detection function will also merge with the DDM-NG system and that the OSF will only serve for long range all weather ID and tracking.
Are there any information available wrt to employing the DDM-NG in another role than missile warning?
Scorpion82Again you’re listening. Rafale has a fully operational IRST. It has a fully operational TV channel and a laser range finder. Typhoon doesn’t. F-35 doesn’t. F-22 doesn’t.
F-35 does, in fact EOTS and EODAS combining TV, IIR and laser for designation and range finding. And EODAS is actually designed to do what many wish to see the DDM-NG doing.
MICA has a effective range of 80+ km against fighters, in both IR and EM configuration. At 50 to 60+ km when the IRST becomes effective, Rafale is capable to engage any target detected with IR missiles.
MICA has an effective range of 80+ km against fighters? Maybe against a very cooperative target, other than that you can cut the effective range by 1/3 to 1/2. It’s always dependent on the circumstances and the 80+ km range is hardly matched by the OSF TV camera and laser. Only the IRST may have a chance to detect and track a target at the range depending on the target’s IR signature and the environment.
Typhoon can’t. Its PIRATE might detect an hostile at 50km but if that hostile is stealthy or jamming and if its radar cannot lock on it, then it can’t do a single thing until it get into ASRAAM or IRIS-T ranges.
PIRATE may detect targets at much greater distances than 50 km and is providing much more information than conventional IRSTs do including a range, velocity, acceleration rates and whether a target is approaching or receding and the system s reportedly capable to track not only a significant number of targets but prioritise them as well. In single target track the sensor generates a target image for visual identification. This approach has its limitations opposed to a “three sensor system” like the original OSF, but it can do a lot of what the overall OSF suite is supposed to do, including detection, tracking and identification of ground targets and passive missile warning and FLIR imaging with images projected on HuD, MHDD or HMSS.
Please provide substance for such claims.
SAR mapping resolution is reportedly 0.3 m for both the Captor-D and the RBE2AA.
The Swiss report praised Rafale for its sensors (which logically include the FSO), while been quite hard about Typhoon’s sensors.
Overall, they didn’t point out that the IRST has been shining in particular, but praised what French pilots have praised as well ID capability of the TV camera, SPECTRA performance and the radar was found to be good. But even the French pilots appear to acknowledge that some MSA systems such as the RDY or Captor are better suited for AA tasks in general, albeit the RBE2 PESA offers its own merits in that department.
Lol because you know of any pilots able to confirm an hostile targets at 20 km away?
By IFF, NCTR or even RWR identification and F-14s could to this with the TCS decades ago.
The detection range between the RBE2AA and Captor-D shouldn’t been to great.
True but situational awareness isn’t about radar detection range alone. Given how you guys claiming clear superiority for the Rafale in the “SA” department it’s surprising that the Rafale, even with its AESA scored marginally higher only.
Second LDP are been implemented all over the world as IRST in second role.
And how many of these pods offer a true search capability? I’m not aware of any pod. Those pods are being slewed by another sensor and provide a passive single target track identification and laser ranging capability.
Such isn’t the case with the Typhoon making the maintenance and the potential cost to upgrade its IRST pretty grim.
Last I repeat, the IRST is operational on every jets since it’s a modular system that can be plug into any Rafales.
Lol have you ever changed an LRU on an aircraft? I suppose not, otherwise you wouldn’t make such silly claims. Fitting PIRATE to a Typhoon is as easy as fitting OSF to a Rafale.
Scorpion82@Shiv
I’m well aware of the limitations of using an IR seeker, but as you asked I answered.;)
Wrt using the MAWS as “IRST” the current system doesn’t offer that capability. If you would work on the algorithms and software you may achieve an EODAS like system, but it’s performance would be limited due to the fixed starring array. It’s also worth noting that this suggestions has been made by some fanboys only and not by the manufacturer or customer. It’s an interesting prospect, but doesn’t look like a capability being developed or even planned at this point, at least not publicly.
A premier disadvantage of systems like the OSF TV camera or the Damocles pod is that they need to be cued by another sensor as they lack an independent search capability.
Wrt the HMD. A Topsight prototype has been worn by Rafale test pilot(s?) in the late 90s, but there is no indication that the system was integrated at all. This could have been trials to verify the impact of the helmet design, whether it’s suitable for high g-manoeuvres etc. The French armed forces selected the competing Gerfaut HMD from Sagem (TopSight being a Thales product) but the helmet got cancelled, some sources suggest due to technical problems as well, next to other funding priorities.
Scorpion82got it 😀 what’s the deal with F-22 requiring over 30 hours of maintenance for every 1 hour of flight :eek:? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/09/AR2009070903020.html
I assume this is under peace time conditions without ever supercruising which causes major damage to its iron ball paint?
It’s reportedly down to 12 now, whether true or not is difficult to say. In anyway it’s an average value and indicates man hours per flight hours. That doesn’t mean the aircraft will not be available for 30 hours following a flight.
Scorpion82T3A avionics will be able to cope with enhancements like AESA, T2s will have to be modified in far greater measure.
It has nothing to do with the avionics, but with reinforcement of the nose structure (done on T2s already) and full provisions for cooling and electrical power.
Let’s wait for Captor-E to be operational and then we’ll see if reality meet the myth, because so far, I’ve been disapointed.
The current Captor already offers the same resolution in SAR mapping as the new RBE2AA, it’s subsequently not too far stretched to assume that the Captor-E will do even better than what the current Captor-D is capable of.
While the IR channel of the FSO is no longer in production, it can be swapped between aircraft effortlessly and provide any Rafale going into the front line with an capable IRST (that was considered to be ahead of PIRATE by the Swiss by the way).
Where did the leaked Swiss evaluation report state that the IR sensor of the OSF is any better than PIRATE? Next to the fact that PIRATE wasn’t operational and fully developed at that time.
By the time the Indian are receiving their first Rafale, a new gen will be ready.
A more powerful radar trying to detect a stealth target will be detected long before it can find anything, and the TV channel of the FSO + MICA will allow full passive identification and engagement long before the Typhoon is aware of whether it’s facing a tango or not (BVR engagement can be messy).
Speculation at best, spare the first part.
Well friend if your aircraft with far more powerful radar isn’t using it, then what advantage does it have vs Rafale and its poor and weak radar?
I’m not claiming that the RBE2AA is “poor”. There are situations were you are better off with a radar and there are those were you may prefer to remain silent.
Who knows, anyway the point here is Rafale is very manoeuvrable.
It was MSA vs PESA.
The sole MET score chart in the leaked evaluation report referred to the expected 2015 configuration which was Rafale F3 O4T and Typhoon T3A with P1E (RBE2AA vs Captor-D).
Scorpion82Maybe his points were a bit simply put but if the SPECTRA can digitize the radar signal returns to hoodwink the enemy – as has been claimed – then there may be some ECM/RCS connection here. A lot depends on the type of radar the enemy has and how well the SPECTRA can adapt to it – and most likely, without good threat libraries it would be potentially a limitation that could not be overcome. Of course, if the enemy relies on powerful IRSTs then you lose that ability totally.
Or on offboard data from GCI or AWACS. One of the premier limitations of firing missiles on base of passive sensor data is that there is no MCG. At this point in time I’m not aware of any AAM which can receive updates via the tactical data links and that’s equally affecting all types of aircraft.
The HMTD issue is not a good argument (excepting AdA and Aeronavale jets) as the export models will offer the TopOwl, even though I prefer the Striker. By circa 2020, the IRST ought to be in place as well, but today the PIRATE is clearly an advantage to have, and perhaps the Rafale’s MAWS can be upgraded as an interim measure to provide 360 degree images and tracking ability.
That requires the HMD to be integrated into the first place. The availability of such a helmet doesn’t equate into operational application of the same. Right now the Rafale has not HMD integrated.
What IR sensor are you talking of? The dedicated IRST has disappeared away at this time, though I suppose that the MAWS can be used if they program it differently (not done this far).
The dual-colour IR seeker if the MICA IR missile can be used as an IRST. Special scan patterns are available and the missile’s seeker data are being fused with other onboard and offboard sensor data as well. The Rafale is subsequently offering a limited IRST option when MICA IRs are loaded.
Scorpion82only 2 :eek:? even JF-17 can engage 2 targets at the same time http://www.pac.org.pk/elec_KLJ7.html
It’s about Air-to-Ground (AG) not Air-to-Air (AA)…
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