As of June 2008, the German Bundeswehr plans to procure Captor-E (as it is named in the addendum to the 2009 Bundeswehrplan) from 2012 on.
will the Captor E look anything like this.
Are they going to give this weird looking AESA with the Typhoon ?
AESA And Typhoon
Posted by Bill Sweetman at 2/19/2009 10:24 AM CSTEveryone buying fighters wants an active electronically scanned array (AESA) these days, no doubt after reading Dave “Mr AESA” Fulghum on the subject.
But Eurofighter remains wary about the issue. The consortium’s executives still stay that – for today – the mechanically scanned (M-Scan) Selex Captor beats any in-service AESA for the Typhoon’s mission, even though Selex itself is ready to go with its Vixen range of AESA radars. A clue as to why they think that way emerged at the Aero-India seminar last week.
Discussing future technologies, Dr, Peter Gutsmiedl, senior vp engineering at EADS Military Air Systems, pointed out ways in which AESA could be integrated into Typhoon – one being the conventional fixed, canted antenna. They included an antenna with auxiliary side arrays, an azimuth gimbal and the so-called “swashplate” radar, a canted antenna on a rotating mount:
What’s behind this thinking? A few years ago, Prof. John Roulston – former technical director at BAE Systems’ radar division, now part of Selex – presented a paper in which he pointed out a limitation of AESA: at extreme scan angles the effective aperture decreases, and the performance of the radar (range, sensitivity and jamming resistance) declines as a result. So today’s M-Scan has a larger field of regard than a fixed AESA, and better performance at the edge of the scan envelope.
This is important for Typhoon because the whole system – in the air-to-air regime – is influenced by air-combat simulations in which a fighter-to-fighter engagement could involve multiple MRAAM shots, followed by a supersonic turn to evade the adversary’s fire and extend the F-pole – the distance between the launch aircraft and the target at impact. To do this, it’s essential to have a radar that can continue to track the target and guide the missile as the shooter turns away.
The gimbal of a pointable AESA does not have to be anything like as fast as an M-Scan gimbal. The high-speed stuff, tracking a moving target, is still done electronically, with the gimbal moving relatively slowly to optimize the field of view.
Moreover, the electronic field of view is now added to the gimbal scan: the swashplate design shown here adds the 60-degree AESA limit to its 45-degree cant angle, to cover 105 degrees in all directions – a total 210-degree field around the nose.
By the way, the designers of the Su-35 think the same way, and the F-22 has space, weight and cooling provision for side arrays, but so far they have been deferred due to budget cuts.
Bad news for Raptor and SH
Irregular-War Focus May Sap Other U.S. Programs
By DEFENSE NEWS STAFF
Published: 18 Feb 18:00 EST (23:00 GMT)
Print Print | Print EmailAs U.S. defense planners draft a 2010 budget, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has instructed a Pentagon task force to list weapon programs that might be killed or curtailed so that more money can be spent on irregular warfare.
The F/A-18 Super Hornet and F-22 Raptor stealth fighter are among two programs likely to be trimmed or killed, a leading defense analyst told Defense News. (Defense Department)An outline of the 2010 budget request is expected next week, but details are likely to remain in flux until April.
Defense analyst Loren Thompson said Gates aims to shift up to $17 billion from current weapon programs.
A Capitol Hill source said that figure sounded high for irregular warfare, but acknowledged that he was aware of such an effort.
Weapons ranging from aircraft to ships to Army systems may be on the chopping block.
F/A-18 Super Hornet aircraft and F-22 Raptor stealth fighters are likely to be trimmed or killed, said Thompson of the Lexington Institute. DDG 51 destroyers and an amphibious assault ship may also be sacrificed.
An industry official disagreed that DDG 51 is in jeopardy.
Thompson said the Army’s Future Combat Systems program is another potential target. And spending on missile defense is likely to be cut from $9.4 billion to $7.5 billion.
The goal is to hold the Pentagon’s 2010 budget to $524 billion, Thompson said Feb. 18.
Gates is determined to “rebalance” the U.S. military’s priorities so that more attention – and funding – is paid to irregular warfare, the analyst said. Such sectors as linguistics, special operations and intelligence would benefit from the shift.
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