Minor point but you do not jam a transmitter, just a receiver. With radar these are one in the same, but in comms they are different.

Btw, the ALQ-99 does not jam in a wide area (ie broadcast type), only in a concentrated cone shape. Radio comms jamming is what Compass Call EC-130s are for, not ALQ-99 equipped aircraft. They stay far outside the threat area precisely because any radio homing missile could easily knock them out.

That has nothing to do with whether a jamming beam is a tight beam or a spread out one. Really, try doing some research as it is common knowledge that event the Rafale has a AESA based jammer.

Your just making my point for me. “Steerable” means that it does not broadcast in all directions at once. Doing so would invite attack and also reduce the total effective jamming power by several orders of magnitude.

Wideband does not mean a wide cone of transmission. It means that the same array will be able to handle a wide range of frequencies (X, Ka, S, L etc) without having to swap out modules like the ALQ-99 has to do so today.

By all means, show where a ALQ-99 has been used to jam radio comms.

Sorry, I am not up to speed on the SPECTRA, and in general, european aircraft except the Grippen. I asked a question, you gave me the answer.

The ALQ-99 system does do communications jamming. The ALQ-227 Communications Countermeasures Set installed on the Growler transmits through the low-band ALQ-99 jammer pod. Source: your link, page 20.

The ALQ-99 system produces a steerable beam as well:

“The Prowler carries five ALQ-99 pods, two under each wing and one under the fuselage. Each pod houses two powerful Continuous Wave (CW) transmitters which use beam steering to direct the jamming signal at the threat. An exciter in the pod tailors the parameters of the jamming signal. Each pod has a control computer linked to the ALQ-99 central processing unit on the aircraft.”

http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/prowler/

However I would imagine that an ESA array would provide 360 FOR, and sharper, more precise beams.

There is no other emitter that a HOJ missile can home in on except for jamming signals (Home On Jamming). Again, if you have information that shows that missiles in HOJ mode can home in on some other emission besides jamming, please share it.

There are many docs that cover the NGJ project going back 7 years at least. On many of them they discuss the needs of NGJ and here are some:

1. Reduced Side Lobes. This is where AESA (or phased array) antennas shine. If you are jamming the ground radar, the missile itself has a much lower chance to see the jamming and will not likely be able to HOJ. Nothing makes you completely safe from HOJ (just like VLO does not make you invisible), but an AESA based jammer makes it very unlikely that a missile will see a jamming signal that is not directed at the missile.

Currently the ALQ-99’s jammer shines a large cone of jamming in any one location. Each ALQ-99 has 2 transmitter horns and can jam two locations at the same time. I am not privy to the size of those cones, but I would imagine they are easily in the double-digit range. AESA signals, OTOH, are less than a degree in width and are thereby harder to detect unless you are the subject of the jamming. This is exactly why AESA radars are harder to detect unless you are the one being scanned.

2. Multi-beam Phased array transmitters (yes it’s on page 52 of the above linked PDF). This lets the jammer react to multiple emmiters virtually simultaneously.

3. Low/High band modules. The NGJ is envisioned to have only two sets of transmitter pods. This differs from the ALQ-99’s 6+ configurations (of which each ALQ-99 can only hold 2 of the 6). This way the EA aircraft can go with a 1x highband, 2x highband & 1x lowband, or 4x highbnad & 1x lowband (1, 3, or 5 pod setup) configuration. The final configs have not been set as we are still in the early development cycle.

The Next Generation Jammer is a weapon designed to interfere with hostile electronic systems. HOJ is a method of attack. Both concepts are well established. Are trying to say that an electronic attack using beams formed/directed by an A/ESA aperture is not jamming? Or are you trying to say that no missile has been developed that can perform a HOJ attack on jammers that use A/ESA apertures? – that I can agree with. Otherwise, a seeker and associated tactics can be developed to exploit just about any emitter that produces enough power to be targeted.

Yes, I found the phased array reference on page 52 of the pdf – I was looking at page 52 of the presentation.

About the stealthiness of the jammer pods: it seems they won’t be. According to this:

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/defense/index.jsp?plckController=Blog&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&newspaperUserId=27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7&plckPostId=Blog:27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post:08fde6ef-750a-4568-8ffa-d1f916fe1e8a&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest

“3. There is no focus or investment so far in altering the signature or radar reflectivity of wing-mounted pods that will carry NGJ even though F-35 is a stealthy aircraft.”

That transmitting antenna will be AESA.

Interesting. Can you provide a source? You are essentially saying that all types of EW/EA envisioned for the EA-18G / F-35 can be accomplished by using just an AESA antenna. The planned pods will have arrays of ESA antennas, but that is not necessarily going to be the sole emitter.

I love how when its mentioned that Typhoon could use its PIRATE to identify an F22 at 100km+ (depending on whose figures you go with), its attacked as impossible because its an IRST system, yet the suggestion of F35 providing 360* threat identification using an IRST near instantaneously it is perfectly realistic. ROFL!

Ahh the internet, where we can divide by zero and elephants are larger than the moon!

The Italian ship Cavour only recently just entered service!

Yes it does seem like a double standard of sorts. IRST’s are worthless unless mounted on an F-35…

About the Italian carrier: that would indeed suck for them if the F-35B is cancelled. But the Brits are getting out of their Harriers it seems, and if the Marines are forced into a doctrinal change, some Harriers and AV-8B’s might be coming onto the market in the next few years…

The Italians still want F-35Bs i wonder what they will do its its canceled

The navy’s 5th Helicopter Group is also in training at Luni air station before receiving its first four NH Industries NH90 anti-surface and anti-submarine warfare helicopters in the first quarter of 2011.

Preparations are also being made at Grottaglie air station for future operations with Lockheed Martin’s F-35B. The navy should receive 22 of the short take-off and vertical landing aircraft between 2014 and 2021, with its Cavour aircraft carrier set to be modified for the type by 2016.

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2010/11/15/349607/picture-italian-navy-deploys-first-aw101s-to-afghanistan.html

I guess it depends upon the condition of their Harriers. The AV-8B’s that the Marines own have a substantial life left after their latest makeover. If the British retire their Harriers, perhaps the Italians could purchase them. The Spanish Navy is in the same boat, but they haven’t ordered F-35B’s as of yet. Both the Italians and the Spanish could refit their carriers to be helicopter carriers, or retire them altogether.

If they can make a gun pod stealthy, they can do the same for the NGJ.

It’s called a RAT (Ram Air Turbine). Here is a good PDF writeup on the NGJ’s internal RAT.

Interesting doc – note that NGJ pod is destined for the EA-18G, JSF, UAV, and other aircraft (possibly the B-52.) Multiple pods are typically loaded on EW aircraft to degrade complex threats – would the F-35 still be stealthy in this configuration? And as soon as the music starts to play, your presence is known. As for the stealthy gun pod, sure the pod can be designed to be stealthier than a typical gun pod, but it is still slung below the airframe, and certainly adds the the aircraft’s RCS – just like jammer pod(s) will. And then there’s the issue of pilot workload – EA-6B’s have three dedicated EW officers, the Growler, one. An EF-35 will have no EW officer at all.

The F-22 can transmit data to other F-22s and to other (non F-22) aircraft if a BACN asset is in the area.

One of the possible upgrades for the F-22 being bandied about is the addition of the F-35’s MADL datalink.

Like an Ad-hoc network.

Apparently and this is somewhat murky, but the USAF is not necessarily interested in NGJ per se and there are obviously many years before those decisions need to be finalized. From looking at the future F-15 support jamming mission outline, USAF might be more interested in their own specially optimized pod requirement based on capabilities derived from the NGJ. So would this be an NGJ-lite so to speak, or an equivalent NGJ capability, will have to be seen.

And assuming the NGJ pod (or internal payload configuration) will eventually become integrated on, say the F-35C platform, there might actually be some fancy nickname or other special notation attached to this frame.

For instance, you indeed might theoretically get some distinguishing ‘F-35CE’ or something along the line..

The pre-wiring can be standard to accept NGJ, but there would apparently still be the special mounts, software update, clearance and maybe even special cockpit display modifications to take full advantage of this system?

You will need a lot of electrical power….