To regain the lost coverage compared to traditional mechanically scanned radars, two solutions exist: additional (‘cheek’) arrays or a swash plate installation in the nose.

A third solution exists, as I said: to mount the array on gimbals, shown here in the Irbis-E radar on the Su-35

With the gimbals, the array can be pointed through about a 220-degreee field of view, and it maintains its full performance at all angles since the antenna face can be directly pointed at the target. Although it doesn’t need to move as fast as gimbals on a MSA, since the gimbals are not used for “scanning” as such, they still have to move a lot of weight.

This is different than a swashplate mounting, as is proposed for the Typhoon and Gripen:

With the swashplate, the array is installed at a fixed angle and then can be rotated longitudinally. This is mechanically simpler and thus presumably more reliable than the gimbal system, but not quite as good in terms of angular performance. The proposed system on the Typhoon would have the antenna fixed at a 45 degree angle. This is touted as giving a 210 degree field of view, assuming the maximum electronically scanned FOV of 60 degrees, but in real life, performance across that 210 degrees will not be uniform.

The disconnect extends deep beneath the titanium and steel skin. Major subsystems for both aircraft are based on different computing architectures. So improving hardware or software on the F-35 yields no benefit for the F-22, and vice versa.

That’s not true in all cases. E.g. the APG-77(V)1 which is a direct use of technology developed for the F-35 and retrofitted to the F-22.

And anyway, let’s see an F-35 with a full, working, debugged avionics and sensor suite before we start waxing poetic about retrofitting that entire architecture into an F-22. Clearly, if we’re going to restart the F-22 production line in a post-2012 moment of lucidity, then we should do it right and develop an F-22C with an up to date architecture. That doesn’t necessarily mean the F-35’s one is the way to go.

It was exercise Capella Strike, involving Harriers from VMA-223 and VMA-542 aboard Ark Royal. Here’s a USMC press release about it, and here’s a video produced by the USMC talking about the exercise.

As is the heat sink on your computer’s CPU (and likely other chips prone to heat, such as the video card GPU).

In Desert Storm, USMC set up operations and flew from a soccer field. As a result, Harriers were the only fixed wing aircraft that did not need aerial tanker support. Had the ground war gone on longer, the plan was to have the Harriers accompany the troops, operating from roads or desert a few miles behind the battle line.

Not really. The “soccer stadium” you refer to in GW1 was in fact a 4,000-foot asphalt runway at King Abdul Aziz Naval Base, 90 miles from Kuwait. The Marines housed their headquarters in a soccer stadium near the runway, which is how the base got that nickname. Sixty-six AV-8Bs were based there for eight months, along with a bunch of OV-10s. Over 2,000 Marines were based there in support of these aircraft.

People like to tout the “flexibility” of the Harrier, but in fact the only reason Harriers ever operate from austere basing is because they have such poor range and payload. Yes, they have used damaged / abandoned runways in Afghanistan and Iraq as temporary refueling / rearming points, but the reason they do so is because they just don’t have the performance to operate effectively from farther away, so they try to make up for it with sortie rate.

And while it may relieve some of the burden on the tankers, transporting the weapons and fuel to a remote location with ground vehicles is an even bigger logistics headache and puts troops in danger. The one time in OIF when Harriers used an improvised FARP on a road, the site was attacked by Iraqi rockets. After that, they gave up the whole FARP concept for Harriers and stuck to real airfields.

At any rate, WRT the A-10, it is a far better CAS plane than the Harrier, but even if any were available it isn’t suitable as-is for the USMC for reasons stated above.

Schwartzkopf may have said nice things about the Harrier, but then Horner also said its payload, range and suitability for close air support was far inferior to the A-10’s, and that the ability to stack conventional strike AC over the battlefield negated the need for quick response from forward-based Harriers in any case. The numbers don’t really work in the Harrier’s favor either; the same number of AV-8Bs as A-10s were lost to enemy action (5 each) but the A-10s flew 8100 sorties vs the Harriers’ 3300.

Compared to the more modern PHALCON using AESA tech, its claimed that the R3 suffers because its rotating mechanical radome only updates target tracks every 20-40 seconds vs only 2-4 seconds for the AESA.

The APY-1 and APY-2 on the E-3s rotates at 6 RPM when the radar is in use, so it scans every 10 seconds not 20-40. In 10 seconds a target moving about Mach 3 at sea level would go about 6 miles.

As far as it goes, fixed phased-array radars are also limited in that their range and resolution drops when the beam angle exceeds about 45-60 degrees from the perpendicular. The Phalcon 707 in particular has a field of view of about 120 degrees with its side arrays, and uses smaller, lower-performance arrays in the nose and tail to cover the blind spots.

Probably the best solution is one like the E-2D, which uses a rotating AESA. This provides the same uninterrupted 360 degree coverage as the E-3, but the rotation can be stopped to focus the radar on a particular sector if more range / resolution is needed.

I’d have no qualms against using something already paid in full. This is much cheaper than new build replacements. Quite possibly the aviators that would get them would already be certified on them.

The F110 engine uses a lot of fuel. It also weighs 1,500 pounds more than a F404. For comparison sakes:

Not sure why that is important. The USAF doesn’t have any aircraft that use the F404. Buying foreign would be a political nightmare and require developing all kinds of new infrastructure for training, maintenance, logistics, all of which costs money we don’t have. Developing a new aircraft would have all the same problems, take far longer, and be even more expensive. Meanwhile, we already have F-16s and all the infrastructure, training pipelines, etc, we need to operate them is in place.

Buying new F-16s is a better investment than refurbishing old F-16s — you get more airframe hours per dollar — and cheaper than any other alternative.

http://www.tvguide.com/News/Kelly-McGillis-Weds-1023272.aspx?rss=breakingnews

Top Gun’s Kelly McGillis Marries Longtime Girlfriend in Civil Union

Sep 19, 2010 10:34 AM ET

Not very surprising considering in Top Gun she seems to be the only character who is uncomfortable around naked dudes.