considering cancellation, you don’t have to have “faster than light adaptation”

when a radar emits, its signal is detectable much further than the radar’s detecting range.

When the wave hits an object, in order to be detected by the radar, it has to travel all the way back… as there is never 100% reflection strength, that would mean that the signal is detectable by the plane in front of it to a distance superior to the twice of the range of the radar… that gives quite a lot of time to your ECM suite to send the cancellation wave back towards the emitter

The only way for your radar to have immediately an echo would be if you started operating it when you’re well whithin the range, but for that, you either have to be lucky or have another source to show you where the bandit is… again, that source may be jammed and you’re stuck back to the point one…

there’s a youtube clip of red flag lecture

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/india/su-30.htm
the F-15 and F-16 “dominated” the Su-30. The Su-30 doesn’t begin to approach the F-22 Raptor, and the upgraded F-15C Eagles with AESA radar may also prove superior. In the Red Flag 2008 jamming between aircraft nullified radar-guided missiles and allowed the aircraft to come into the merge. The Indians tried to use their “air show tricks”, but the US pilots used the tactics they had developed to move in behind the Flankers when they started “sinking” and to quote a pilot, “drill their brains out with guns

well, that shows that we’re not talking about the same thing… I was talking about Exercises that USAf had with IAF in 2004… basically when they were doing all they could to get more raptors.

That’s also when they communicated pretty much how more advanced the eventual oponents became and how important it was to get maximum of these new toys they wanted…

The result you point out actually illustrated my saying: when you want to sell something, you show it much better than it really is… and, in the case of F-15s (in the role of “outperformed fighters”), by downplaying their performance, the USAF visibly hoped to prove their point: they wanted the F-22 in bigger numbers as it was supposed to be much better..

Another thing, much more relevant in your example (Red Flag 2008 experience) is that jamming prevented BVR shots and everybody got to merge. Now, if that is the reality (always put a grain of salt.. sometimes more 😉 ), then two observations seem relevant:

– good ECM suite is better than stealth (as you can adapt it to the enemy radar frequencies which is out of the question for aircraft skin or shape)
– any fighter, including the F-22 if it was involved in that “uncapacity to lock on in BVR and shoot”, has to be good in dogfighting… (reminds me of F-4s sent to vietnam with missiles only)

So much for the scenario in which the F-22 shoots its enemies in BVR with those never seeing it…

If you’re a bomber, stealth can help you get to target, drop ordnance and get out of there..; but if you have to attack other aircraft and can’t get a lock at long distance because their ECM suite beats your radar long enough, stealth or not, sooner or later you can get locked and shot at too… in the RF 2008 scenario, if F-22s are part of those who had to merge before shooting, then the whole concept that costed billions seems to be just a very efficient way to waste money…

This documentry – was it or is it on YouTube?????
Hell if so, its just my luck I don’t know French!!!!!!!:mad:

Regards
Pioneer

it was on tv, but I’ll look after it on youtube, maybe get something

one thing that may be interesting with the L-Band radar russians present for teh Su-27 derivatives family is thath, while the precision isn’t all that great, you could use IR long range missiles.

Using the LF radar to get approximative position of your target, you could, theoretically, shoot your missiles, update their path en route and let the IR seeker do its job once the IR signature of the target becomes strong enough.

You don’t need pinpoint accuracy with your radar in such a case and with newer and more performant IR seekers, you may be able to lock on any aircraft even from front aspect (especially a supercruising one, which will have its nose and leading edges heated by friction of air at sustained supersonic speeds)

“Stealth” aircrafts skin works for short wavelength radar emissions. If your radar uses a longer wavelength (lower frequency) the stealthiness of the aircraft diminishes.

The longer wavelengths present basically two difficulties:

– antenna size (you need a big one for that, making it impracticable for aircraft)
– lack of precision (today it’s given for a precision of about a couple of hundred meters)

The F-22, even visible has the advantage against other aircraft because of its speed and altitude in a tipical mission it’s designed for… at least for now…

With the meteor missile to come into service in a few years from now (and probably other longer range stuff elsewhere in the world), that “safe haven” won’t be that safe anymore.

The F-35, nobody can say for now… when it becomes operational and some real world data are published, we may see.

The thing to consider though is how the F-22 has performed when fighting other US aircraft, who weren’t holding back with sensors/techniques. Granted the Typhoon and Rafale are more modern airframes, but the Super Hornet and AESA equipped F-15s(with helmet sights, etc…), have very modern avionics, and even that hasn’t changed the outcomes. Another thing to consider, and was mentioned in some of the videos, is that these Raptor pilots may only have 100hrs in the F-22 vs. a pilot that may have thousands of hours in their aircraft, and the Raptors were still dominating.

last I’ve read, the rafale pilot having most hours is Cne Ruet, rafale presentation pilot, and he had something like 700hours… pilots in operational units have quite less flying time in their machines (maybe half of that, at most for the majority of them)

considering “valueless opinions”, mine is as good as anyone’s… everybody has his own opinions based on data he had access to. I don’t consider to know everything (and anyone who does has some serious problems with his ego), and the latest things I came across about SAAB’s offer were that SAAB offered a gripen NG that “would be developed in participation with brasil”.

What’s more, talking about “trolling”, your post goes right that way… My third post follows my second where I talk about the 4 years delay left (from now to 2014), which you seem to ignore (volontarily?)… either you don’t pay attention to what people say or you try just to be provocative (trolling ploys, you said?)

Now, if you want all the details: while I’ve read a bit about the gripen when it came on the international scene, I didn’t particularily follow its developments since then, and, as far as gripen NG goes, I didn’t know at what stage of its development it was.

Therefore, the proposition, as I’ve read it (first paragraph of my post) meant to me they’d develop a new plane with brasilians, which brought my first comment on it… (nonsense to claim a new plane would be developed in a very short period with one participant learning from scratch).

Then, my second post, while I took note of my mistake (yeah, I did not aknowledge I was mistaken, yet, as the correction came right in the next post, I continued from there, it appeared to me that it seemed clear I missed it in the first place), my second post in this discussion was about the delay left for delivery of the first plane – 2014 from now would be 4 years left, and yes, 4 years is very short when you develop a plane.

and just as H_K said, considering the development of an aircraft, you can’t have both:

– it’s either a mature program with little left in development area, and therefore the argument of “development with brasilians” is more marketing than reality (which would be compatible with delivering schedule wanted by brasil),

– or there is a serious development to do, which may allow brasilians to participate really to the program, but also, it would mean that, if brasilians start from scratch in “last gen aircraft” they’ll have to learn very quickly… very very quickly…

Now, considering the version of gripen that flies from beginning of last november, where, according to this site:

http://psk.blog.24heures.ch/archive/2009/11/11/le-gripen-ng-monte-en-puissance.html

the fighter already has all its final systems in place… it would seem that there would be very little development in which the brasilians could participate.

As for Brazilian participation in development: Gripen NG is further from being fully developed than either F-18E or Rafale, so there is more scope for Brazilian participation in Gripen NG development than in either of the others. Easy to understand, eh?

Given SAABs record elsewhere (e.g. South Africa), its promises on offsets & participation would seem to be the most credible of the three.

Considering that rafale and F-18 are in their operational stages, there is no development involved at the beginning of the program… so, saying there’s more to develop with the gripen is quite easy. However, the french propose the full technology transfer.. if I understand well, that means they train brasilians to build their own fighters in factories built in brasil and that, from scratch to finish ‘the french, unlike swedes, build their aircraft entirely from french parts and can sell the whole lot)… once the french gave them the training and tools and source codes etc, brasilian engineers have the ability to make their own aircraft, and also, the ability to test and develop evolutions as they see fit.

As for the question “which country in south america has the need or the money to need a rafale fleet”?

Need? Almost any country may find out they “need it”, depending on their policy today and tomorrow. If, for example (what if scenario), argentina decides they want the falklands again, what will they send as fighters to take control of the skies above the islands? The RAF has 8 typhoons overthere, so, sending in some old fighters models wouldn’t be very productive…

It all depends on who comes to power in this or that country and what his policy may be (not forgetting we’re talking about “needs” somewhere after 2015 or even further in the future).

Money? well, it all depends on the price asked by brasil for its rafales… dassault needs to sell the fighters to repay the development, but brasil buying only 36 fighters had invested much less in it… not forgetting that their “building costs” may also run way lower than the french ones. Therefore, they may as well propose rafales at a smaller price making it a much more interesting deal… especially in some 5-10 years from now…

only future may tell