Obligatory :

As we can see, the magical spectra was 6% better than the ole system in use in Gripen, perhaps a bit over rated ?

The “ole” EWS 39 ??
In this chart , do you know where and how other EW systems would stand against Spectra , EWS 39 and Praetorian ?
They would stand behind .
Only the US F-35 ‘s AN/ASQ-239 and the Falcon edge system would fare well .
I don ‘t know enough about Russian/Chinese/Israeli ECM systems to include them in a possible chart .

Btw , if the Typhoon ‘s EW system is so far behind , it is because it ‘s a self defense system mostly designed to save the aircraft from incoming missiles (thanks to its towed decoys) . But this is another story …

Cheers .

Hopsalot :

Well, he just did, and I would take his word, or for that matter the word of any random person on the street, over yours….

It ‘s up to you and I couldn ‘t care less to be honest . It only shows that you can ‘t see the truth when its presented by me , which is not going to help you much …

Cheers .

Here is a good look on the Gripen EWS 39 :

For someone with a good understanding , 2 things are well worth to be noted :
Its angular resolution is excellent , it ‘s using video processors (faster processing and better FFT : faster and better mapping of the signal(s)) .

What is unknown is what techniques are used to jam the signals (classified) .
This is at least comparable to the US Falcon edge system but the Swiss chart is quite clear about the capabilities of the system when compare to Spectra :

Cheers .

Back to the F-35 .

As I said MANY times before , the aircraft is going to do an excellent job as a light attack jet . Stealth and excellent sensors are going to make it well worth it .
Nevertheless , its bang for bucks power is only good is some scenarios . Most of the time , a excellent 4+ gen fighter will do as good and this is the problem . The F-35 is an excellent weapon system , an excellent weapon system (I repeat to make sure everybody gets it) but only the USA and the UK will be able to use it as it was intended to be used . Do you think that Netherlands , Italy , Canada , Australia or Denmark would try to go over Chinese airspace with the F-35 ??
The USA/UK would because they have other assets/means to help to open the way and to protect the jet .

Also , as I said again many times before , if the aircraft is challenged during mission , its chances to escape (even by opening the bay doors and drop the AtoG load) are far from optimal . The aircraft is too much of a compromised .

Cheers .

@ Moon_light ,

I can ‘t make you understand if you don ‘t want to .
Secondly , I don ‘t have the time nor the will .

@ Spudman ,

We’ ll see when the F-35 is operational if all the LM BS stands , until then …

Cheers .

Much of the activity has focused on high speed tests which have seen the F-35 being repeatedly pushed out to its maximum speed of Mach 1.6 and 700 knots calibrated airspeed-often fully laden with internal weapons.

BS . Anyway , what “internal load” ? Amraams .
Then , the F-35 probably gulped half of its internal fuel to reach that speed and to sustain it for a couple of minutes . A chasing Su-27 , Typhoon , Rafale , etc would catch it in no time due to the very poor supersonic acceleration of the F-35 .

the line in bold is wrong as already been explained

No it ‘s not .

and not to mention that you cannot put RAM every where , how about the missiles that rafale carry outside , how about the radar nose , how about the FSO ( irst ) ..etc

True . I have never said that the Rafale was a LO aircraft when loaded .

transparent material is not exactly the good way to reduce RCS

Yes it is .

Cheers .

Moon_light :

low power in each frequency but total power still high

Irrelevant . You don ‘t ADD the power of the spikes .

i was explain why it be easier for F-22 and F-35 ( compared to gen 4 , 4.5 aircraft ) to detect enemy’s AESA by RWR before they get detected themselves ( because they are stealth so the distance that the enemy can see them by radar be shorter => stronger signal => easier for them to distinguish between noise and the real signal from enemy radar by contrast non stealth aircraft dont have that advantages , so they may be detected , track by AESA radar at long distance before their RWR know that )

Ah , at last you start to understand ! 🙂

let assume the RAM of rafale can slow down the wave by 100 times

oh , it ‘s waaaay more than that ! In the range of 1.000.000 times . Then , the wave power after such “travel” will be so low that the echo will be too faint to be taken into account by the original radar . Most of the wave energy will be turned to heat during the “journey” inside the RAM .

Cheers .

@ Moon_light ,

I was going to respond to you with regard to how LPI Aesa radars can be detected , classified and jammed but your knowledge on the matter is not good enough to understand even the basics . It would be nice if you could read a bit more on it beforehand , but let ‘s try .

First , an aircraft with a top of the range RWR (capable of -90dBmi or better) is going to detect a LPI signal way before to be detected . Keep it in mind , it is important . That means two things : 1) the aircraft has some time to decide what to do (change course , prepare an electronic response , etc) , 2) the RWR suite has plenty of time to “decipher” the LPI signal .

You said :

frequency is manipulated in real time , does not mean there is no delay , no matter how fast is the computer it always take time to measure it

This is correct, the time taken is in the order of few milliseconds . But then , it is where DRFM comes into play . After the first few readings , most (if not all) of the characteristics of the LPI signal will be stored in memory , ready for real time use . What will be known and stored in memory are things like :
– LPI radar type (if already known)
– Processing gain of the LPI radar
– Carrier frequency
– Modulation bandwidth
– Modulation period
– Code period
– Time and angle of arrival
– received signals strenght
– received frequencies
– observed antenna scans
etc …

From there , a top of the range ECM suite can built automated responses (or not) to manipulate the LPI signal(s) in real time , as they arrive , as they bounce on the airframe .
In fact , the ECM suite decides when to start jamming according to the adverse LPI radar capabilities .

i have not heard of any DRFM that can lower aircraft RCS

Because you don ‘t know what Digital Radio Frequency Memory is . DRFM allows some part of the signal (or all of it) to be manipulated to fool the adverse radar into thinking wrong about various parameters like , size , range , velocity , position , etc … It can also change the “signature” of the LPI signal which forces the LPI radar not to recognize its own signal .

You also said :

the radar wave from F-35 go to rafale , it will bounces on the aircraft and come back , at the same time Spectra will analyze the signal and create false signal , send back to the F-35’s radar but no matter how fast is the computer on rafale it still need time to measure and create the signal , even if it only take 0.01 second ,the signal sent by Spectra still arrive to the F-35 radar slower than the real Apg-81 waves that bounces from the rafale airfame ( because they not start at the same time ), so the APG-81 will only reject the Spectra signal

No . There is something you don ‘t know so let me ask you this : do you think that the electromagnetic waves are bouncing immediatly when they hit RAM ?
Answer : no .
In fact , the time it takes for the waves to travel through RAM (and to escape it) (few milliseconds , depending on the RAM) then to bounce back is enough for a top of the range ECM suite to respond “in real time” .

I have just highlighted few points to give you a better view on how radar waves behave . There are hundreds of links on the Web explaining the basics and I urge you to do a bit of homework . Do it , it ‘s very interesting Moon_light . 🙂

Another mistake :

an AESA radar have 1000-1200 T/R modules , try to detect and jam them will not be easy ( like try to jam 1000 different radars)

No , it doesn ‘t work this way and it has been explained to you by another poster .

Also , when Rafale demonstrated a 180* kill with a MICA using Link-16 target datas from another Rafale in June 2007 , the target (C22 drone) was NOT in range to fire a “normal” IR missile . The Mica had to turn 180* and then had the legs to reach the drone . It was a 180* BVR shot Moon_light .

@ ActionJackson :

You do the same mistakes than Moon_light .
Also , you said :

If the Radar the rafale is jamming is running on a higher number of frequencies than the rafale’s aesa jammers is capable of matching with any useful signal density, then the rafale loses

This is not the case since Spectra covers a HUGE amount of frequencies and not only the X band .

If the radar has a higher agility than the rafale’s jamming transmitters then the rafale loses

This is irrelevant and only shows that you do not know much RWR , DRFM and ECM in general . Frequency agility has NOTHING to do when the original signal is known and recorded . Anyway , Spectra is an Aesa GaN ECM suite and can use a wide variety of radar bands .

Jamming doesn’t do anything once the range gate has closed

Wrong .

Btw , the Rafale ‘s tail is mostly made of radar transparent material and its RCS is minimal .

Cheers .