GoldenDragonDeino, I meant to say you should look at the J-13 as a clue to how the J-11 might look.
I believe that the J-11 might actually have a pointier nose similar to the J-13. The wider nose of the J-8II (and the J-9) was related to the need for a large radar tied to the PL-4 SARH project.
Without the need for a large BVR radar, the J-11 would have a pointier nose much like the F-1 Mirage.
GoldenDragonARH is not a fire and forget AAM. Where did you get that?
Crobato, ARH is fire-and-forget.(1) An active radar homer is an autonomous seeker needing no help from a radar to hit its target when it is within range. That an ARH AAM would have a flight envelope way beyond its seeker’s engagement range doesn’t stop it from being a fire-and-forget. The IR version of the Ash has flight envelope along the horizontal far beyond the range of the IR seekerhead to engage.
Look up ARH and fire-and-forget and you’ll see the terms together. The same with AMRAAM and R-77. These things are always associated with the term “fire-and-forget.”
When it is fired off the rail from true long range distances, it is no different than a SARH missile with inertial navigation. Both needs the fighter’s radar to search for the target, identify the target, track the target, lock on to the target, and guide the missile through datalink updates.
An active homer within the engagement range of its seekerhead could lock on to a target. You lose all advantage of range if you don’t use the radar but the seekerhead can still engage without an aircraft radar if its own is turned on. The AMRAAM can be fired in WVR combat if you want to expend a 500,000 missile instead of a Sidewinder.
The only difference between the inertial SARH missile and the ARH missile is the final 15 to 20km distance of flight. This is where you can “forget” the missile BUT it is always never a good policy to TAKE your radar off your target even in the final phase of your missile’s flight unless you need to make a drastic survival maneuver. To “forget” means losing situational awareness. You must maintain your awareness of the target at all times. Did you get the kill? Or did he survive and is attacking you now?
Not only is the radar is needed to be turned on in the case of the SARH AAM, it needs to be locked on with a narrow beam on the target no matter how close the range.
Whether it is a good idea or not is actually secondary to whether it is a fire-and-forget missile or whether it is more tied to a particular radar.
You would always need the ability to turn off your radar if there is a missile homing your way.
As for the ability to pick out signals, reflected signal is different from illumination signal, and both SARH and ARH have to deal with the same issue. No difference here. In principle, the only difference between SARH and ARH is the location of the illuminator, the former on the fighter and the latter on the missile.
You actually described why it is very different. The SARH is homing on the reflection from a radar. The SARH has be able to receive the frequency and pattern of its parent radar to engage. SARH is tied to a specific radar because of this.
The ARH is homing in on a frequency and pattern it already knows, its own.
On location, a missile can’t tell location unless it uses a specific way to do so. There are different ways. One is doppler and the other is a directional receiver that can take in signals from its front hemisphere. There could be other methods. Russian and American SARHs might not necessarily use the same methods.
To use a Sparrow on a Russian set or the Ash on a Western set is not an easy thing because you have to deal with the different ways it’s handling the above problems. You are talking about one device (the AAM) being able to discern and process the signals of another device (the plane’s radar.) Radar and SARH missile can’t help but be tightly coupled.
The ARH is easier, maybe just marginally, to convert to a radar it wasn’t initially paired with.
Thus in a single target engagement, it, ARH has not much value over SARH.
I would disagree very much. Even for a single target. The SARH firer can’t break off at any time without his missile going dumb and missing. The ARH shooter could break off immediately if he within the range of his AAM’s radar.
The ARH is no different from a WVR IR AAM except its engagement range is about five times that of the average IR AAM. It is fire-and-forget.
Then again, much of what I’ve said above could be proven wrong if the FC-1 or J-10 one day fires both the FD-60/PL-11 and the R-27, Crobato 🙂
But I doubt very much that the R-27 will be carried on a Chinese built plane other than the J-11. Except for the J-8IIM with the Phazotron radar, I’ve never seen the AA-10 on the J-8II.
A good discussion.
Footnotes:
(1) http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/m-120.html
“The AIM-120 AMRAAM (Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile) is a fire-and-forget air-to-air missile, and has replaced the AIM-7 Sparrow as the U.S. military’s standard BVR (Beyond Visual Range) intercept missile.
In the late 1970s, the U.S. military services decided that they needed a medium-range air-to-air missile with a true fire-and-forget capability.”
GoldenDragonNice job Deino! Would like to see it again after you apply some of Crobato’s suggestions.
One of the things you might look at is the J-13 which began development a few years after the J-11 in 1971 and might have been a descendent or at least might have incorporated some designs from the J-11. The J-13 was also expected to use the Spey.
Jack Collins’ “Chinese Fighter Development” article at CDF has a rendering of the J-13.
GoldenDragonWell, nobody would have complained if it wasn’t outside the fire zone that the British themselves declared. Also thinking they’re in a “safe” area might possibly have been the reason for the Belgrano’s escorts to leave their sonars off (still an incredible thing to do in light of a war.)
GoldenDragonIt’s not that easy, since ARH AAMs are fired from the Track while Scan mode (TWS) as opposed to the single tracking mode. Your radar could be tracking 8 targets for example, with automatically selecting two of the most threatening targets (by the radar computer’s opinion), from which you can launch off ARH missiles at each of them.
ARH could be fired under many different parameters including right off the rail with the missile’s radar to extreme range where the radar is needed provide information to guide the missile to within range of the AAM’s homing ability.
Firing under TWS is just one of many different ways of firing the ARH. There is nothing that says you really need TWS with a fire-and-forget AAM (which by definition means an autonomous seeker.)
If you set up a tonal system from your ARH AAM to your cockpit like the old Vietnam era Sidewinder, you could fire the thing off without a radar set on your plane at all (though you would probably need to change fusing conditions.)
The easiest BVR principle is actually the old style SARH illumination without inertial updates aka like the way the Sparrows used to before the AIM-7M came along. And the same way Aspides used to of course, since the Aspide is much like an AIM-7F. You illuminate the target with radar like a flashlight, and the SARH missile simply homes in on the reflections.
Crobato, SARH is always more dependent on radar because, as you stated above, the missile needs to pick up a constant stream of reflected radiation from the target.
The missile also needs to know how pick out the pattern and frequency from the all other signals in the air.
And even when it could figure out the correct signal, it needs to futher figure out that the signal coming back is actually a reflection and not the painting beam from the plane firing it. Otherwise, it could home back on its owner.
SARH is much more tightly tied to a specific radar than ARH, at least in principle (though in practicality, having a set of ARH missiles without TWS means you lose the advantages of a long range fire-and-forget.)
The way that an AA-5 Ash or AA-10 and a Sparrow figures out the correct reflection could be very different from one another. A Sparrow could use a doppler mechanism to determine it is homing in on a reflection (and not the parent beam) while an Ash might use a directional antenna.
All this must be calibrated between missile and radar.
I think the problem is extremely hard to solve in a FC-1 or F-7PG with a western radar using a Soviet style AAM like the R-27.
A FD-60 or Aspide would probably be easier to integrate because as descendents of the Sparrow, they most likely use the same methods in determining the above problems.
An ARH like the R-77 might also be easier to integrate because the plane’s radar doesn’t direct the missile with radiation that the missile has know about.
An ARH AAM could theoretically be divorced entirely from a radar unlike a SARH. A passive infrared acquisition system could find a target and then have the plane’s radio equipment signal the ARH missile (like an UCAV) to within range of the ARH’s radar.
GoldenDragonThe versus stuff with the FC-1 is rather a silly attempt to derail the discussion. The person who began it is not interested in the Azakrsh II but in a way to start another south Asia-related flamewar so just ignore him. Or if you do want to flame then go to his poll and do it there.
The newsworthy part is that Iran has developed a fighter.
If you’re a true flight fan, it is always interesting when one of the non-majors (countries outside of the Western circle and Russia) creates something.
With the Iranians, they have two homegrown trainers, the Tazarv and the Safagh, and possibly two fighters programs, the twin F-5 above (which might or might not be the Azakarsh II) and the mythical Saeqeh-80. That is pretty good for a country under embargo.
We shouldn’t be bringing planes from other countries into this thread.
GoldenDragonMostly a naval affair.
Depending on the people in charge in Taiwan, territorial dispute between China and Japan would involve Taiwan also. For years, the people who fought hardest over the Senkaku-Daioyutai islands from the Chinese side were people from Taiwan and Hong Kong not the mainland.
Of course, an independent Taiwan who would give up claims to Kinmen and Matsu would probably give up Chinese claims to Daioyutai and the Spratlies, even though Taiwan holds the largest of the Spratlies and the only one with a reasonable airstrip.
GoldenDragonNo pictures of the latest design yet but we have models and pictures of airshows past.
The L15, as released in models and drawings by Hongdu. has gone through at least two versions (the one with the pointy nose being the later than the one with the blunt nose).
Check out Huitong’s Chinese military aviation site for more info.
GoldenDragonthe economy is still poor and their own military industry is a joke compared to Taiwan, Germany, Japan or even the oh-so-hated India.
Actually, no country in South Asia, South America and eastern Europe (discounting the CIS) could match the economy and military industry of Taiwan, Germany or Japan.
That’s the simple economic and industrial truth. But rogue is a different matter and implies moral judgement from the one making the statement towards a particular country.
GoldenDragonL-15 news
According to a Chinese board post, a mainland aviation magazine said Hongdu has completed its design for the L15 advance trainer.
The flight date targeted is the end of 2005.
GoldenDragonThe AA-5 is not only way too large, it’s a SARH AAM mated to a very specific radar, the Smerch (always remember this because it sound like the James Bond’s SMERSH badguy outfit.)
This story is pretty much full of holes.
But if its the AA-10, you’d have the same problem with another SARH that is mated to Russian radars. SARH requires continuous communication between radar, plane and missile until the moment the fuse is set off.
An active homer is easier to configure into a different radar than a SARH since the radar (under the very simplest engagement parameters) is used only to fire the AAM in the direction of the target until the AAM’s own radar takes iver.
So since we’re guessing it to be something other than the Ash, it could be the R-77 too.
GoldenDragonY7 and Y8C of the PLAAF
GoldenDragonLet’s see:
Egypt has F-16s (US), MiG-23 (Russia) and Chinese K-8s (even bought a whole line for it.)
Tanzania has Antonovs, Bells, Dorniers and Shaanxi Y-8s as well as Chengdu J-7s.
Pakistan has Mirages and Q-5s.
Iran has MiG-29s, J-7s and Y-8s
Iraq had MiG-29s, MiG-27s and J-7s
Sudan has Russians MiGs and Y-8s.
Eithiopia has Russian MiGs and Y-12s.
Namibia has Cheetahs and Y-12s and K-8s.
Laos, Cambodia, Peru and you can go on for another two dozen countries. All have bought Chinese planes.
Oh, Canada has access to every western aircraft made in the world and they also have Y-12s 😀
You know you could equip your whole air force and civilian regional airline with Chinese products. But that hasn’t happened because most countries do have choices and they fly a mixture of aircraft originating from different countries.
Outside of China, there is no other plane from Asia that these countries have could have bought recently.
With the sole exception of the Pakistani Super Mushak 🙂
GoldenDragonHamstrung by the West or not, China’s aviation industry is the largest and most deeply structured outside the West and Russia.
This could be seen in her exports and the number of companies dealing with every aspect of aviation.
You could buy a Chinese product from nearly every niche of the spectrum from prop trainers to fighters to bombers to transports.
As for Pakistan prefering western avionics, they would prefer the same in Su-27s provided by Ukraine if that had come to pass.
The idea that any country in Asia, outside, maybe, of the technical powerhouses of Japan, S Korea and Taiwan, having more depth in its aviation areas than China is ludicrous.
There are multiple Chinese firms dealing in radars, engines and weapons, not to mention at least two major firms each in fighters, bombers, trainers, transports and helicopters.
It’s not only deep but deep to the point of overcapacity.
GoldenDragonIt’s a start and a start of a new industry.
It would be interesting to see where the Iranians go. Their equipment and philosophy is American but because they’ve been cut off from the west for so long, they would have developed new ideas branching off from the original American base.
Just like the Chinese developed off the Soviet model after the Sino-Soviet split, we’ll eventually see new Iranian aircraft based on the F-5, F-4 and F-14.
There’s no certainty that the Saeqeh 80 is the same as the Azarakhsh II. It could be F-4 or F-14 based.
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