New article of AESA “news” from flightglobal:

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/selex-nears-aesa-radar-delivery-for-gripen-372125/

Please don’t come back and say something like “Well I’ll believe when i see it or, Rafale will have conformal arrays by 2015- pah!”

That’s gripen news though…

edit: oh my bad they speak about the captor-E at the end.

Nic

Don’t get me wrong, I mean VLO as a naked airframe. This means that jamming to reduce your signature does not count.

The reasons are simple:
1. You fighter definition should not depend on the flip of a switch.
2. The separations in generations should be such that you cannot retrofit a prior generation to the next without serious redesign and in essence creating a new plane.

What difference does it make if the result is the same?

Nic

Aren’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.

Yes, I’d go for such a missile. Although I still think more variants of the Meteor should be developped, such as an IIR variant, but also anti-radiation variants, with AtoA & AtoG warloads available.

Nic

You’re right. A mixed fleet of Gloster Gladiators and Supermarine Spitfires is much better than a full fleet of Spitfires.

Nic

The Americans opined that dual channel tech on the seeker (radar + IR) was too hard to use in terms of computer processing and decision making. It’s much easier to use two-color designs such as UV and IR then what you suggest.

I don’t see any technical hurdle for the Meteor as far as IR tech is concerned – it’s more a cost issue for testing the weapon using (ironically) the MICA IR seeker. IR technology works well on much quicker missiles like the Israeli Arrow.

I don’t know what is so ironic about it, the EM seeker of the Meteor is derived from the Mica EM seeker already.

Nic

That when all of them have full tank & all of them are on max dry thrust,
Gripen NG out-last them all, putting an end to the myth that the NG is low on fuel

Are you sure that all three planes are going to cruise at the same power setting with a similar payload?

Nic

Your representation of the society is oversimplistic.
Workers don’t grow on trees. You first need students and teachers to form them. So teachers do create values… yet indirectly and students are the next generation workers. They are of primary importance.

When 80% of the teachers vote for the candidates that represented only 28% of the voters, then you have to wonder about our democracy, and especially our education.

Nic

If the Spitfire is getting bashed because the Gladiator pilots managed to kick their ass a couple times, then one can’t really complain.

If the Gladiator pilots gets falsely bashed by Spitfire pilots, then the Gladiator pilots have every right to set the record straight and tell their version.

Considering the competition between the Typhoon and the Rafale, I’m pretty sure every encounter is as close as it gets as a real dogfight, which is good training for our pilots :diablo:

Nic