Operational testing occurs even in peacetime..
BTW, you still haven’t shown me where in the report is it written..

Your claim is ridiculous and can therefore be dismissed outright, it’s that simple. AESA is a lot better than PESA or M-Scan. Everyone knows this, which is why everyone is investing in it. Both the money invested and continued investment proves you wrong. You still haven’t shown where it says this wasn’t a US vs a55hat scenario being tested.

Yes some short memories….

Just to add to that collection:

http://www.afhso.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-120516-036.pdf

The DOT&E report states that? Show me where…

‘Operational testing’. All recent operations have been against a55hats.

You couldn’t babysit your own socks,, IMO..

You couldn’t babysit your own tights.

There was some talk of some of the Saudi EFs being equipped with AESAs. Anybody know if there any substance to that? Scorpion?

I believe their outstanding order is 24 aircraft, so they will probably be AESA equipped.

Sometimes, an argument reaches a point from where further continuation remains pointless. I feel like a pro boxer after a pub fight with some local bloke who, having been sent to ground five times before, just keeps standing up asking for more.. But just like punching a helpless drunk shipyard worker just ain’t funny anymore, arguing with you feels the same.. you are simply not a worthy opponent and the game has lost its kick.. I will restrain from further argumentation and the usual proving/disproving sources game as I, after having won 10:0, am simply not motivated to score any further. I will simply write what I think and that’s it.. You can also restrain from further quoting the same worn articles with font size 100 because I won’t be bothered reading them again, anyway..

Regarding Captor-E, “using latest technology” is just a buzzword. In reality you have to work with what is available. EADS/Airbus currently have the proven and reliable back-end from Captor-D, slightly modded to work with AESA front-end.. And they have the AESA antenna with “old” GaAs based TRMs made by Filtronic/Teledyne, inherited from CAESAR, based on the US-sourced modules once used with AMSAR.. As Euroradar chairman has said last year, the GaN technology was not yet mature enough for use in the Captor-E.

Well, latest technology? Hardly… For that you’d need to wait for the GaN based TRMs currently developed by EADS Cassidian and connect them to a all-new back-end planned for Captor-E EOC, with new receiver and additional hardware implemented with the AAU. But you cannot say to your fellow Arab client that he gets a functional AESA in 2025+ earliest when Dassault is offering RBE2-AA (corresponding to Mk1+ IOC) delivered tomorrow..

Captor-E EOC (Mk2) will get a new back-end, that was never a point of argument.. But it won’t be ready by 2019, by that time it might just have started the testing and evaluation phase.. The date I have given for initial induction (2025+) is just an estimate, but a realistic one, the way I see it..

Given the current timeframes, Rafale is having a nine-year advantage of induction (RBE2-AA vs Mk1+). Partly due to easier transition from PESA, partly due to a three-year delay in funding of Captor-E and partly due to lack of commitment from EF core nations. The current British involvement in advanced techniques (funding for Mk2 received in mid-2014) might have reduced this gap but the French are not sleeping – their GaN modules made by UMS are announced in few years and PEA programme aimed at MLUed Rafale (call it RBE3) shall be implemented in ~2025.

Seems to me that even your own sources, the recent ones, prove you wrong, since they all suggest a move to the latest technology. Meanwhile, other sources show that two development paths are being harmonised, you still haven’t managed to grasp this point.

Heh, just a ‘buzzword’, because it suits you. Doesn’t mention anything about type of modules used, you’re making that up too. It may well be that it gets GaAs in the first run but then maybe GaN comes in the second update and some aircraft get GaAs and some GaN. That’s unclear right now.

Where the hell do you keep getting 2025 from, absolutely no source on Earth supports that. The Mk2 will be rolled out from 2019 onwards, how they’ll play it I don’t know, depends if there’s any different hardware involved. 2025 is just a total BS estimate on your part though and you should keep to the facts in the sources rather than polluting the world with your estimates/crap.

The Rafale didn’t have two development paths being harmonised, nor did it have work going on on other radar projects, like Raven ES-05, to draw from. And this is what many people fail to understand about the diversity of UK aerospace investment. People compare orders for Rafales against order for Typhoons and think that tells the full story, it doesn’t, not nearly. France only has one technology investment vehicle and one fighter export, the Rafale The UK has a 33% share in 571 orders, of which about 160 are ours (I think), so that’s 33% of the remaining 411, or 137. That already beats Rafale exports hands down, with its 2-digit order book. Then you have a 10% stake in 3064 F-35 orders, so that’s another 306 fighter orders. Then you have the technology supply to both the F-35 and Gripen NG (EW suites, STOVL systems, Canopies + various body parts, flight control software, Cobra HMD, Raven ES-05, Skyward etc.). For radars you have BAE SYSTEMS, QinetiQ and Selex UK (in Euroradar) going at it. So what happens in Euroradar land isn’t where development stopped or started wrt what the RAF will get. As regards what gets exported, yes, I imagine it will be something lower tier.

Yes, they did.. You got it right in the official DOT&E report, page 154.

http://www.dote.osd.mil/pub/reports/FY2012/pdf/navy/2012fa18ef.pdf

The APG-79 AESA radar demonstrated marginal improvements since the previous FOT&E period and provides improved performance relative to the legacy APG-73 radar. However, operational testing does not demonstrate a statistically significant difference in mission accomplishment between F/A-18E/F aircraft equipped with AESA and those equipped with the legacy radar.

What operations have they conducted since introduction that tested the full range of AESA capabilities? Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, ISIS? Well that certainly must have put a real strain on the full breadth of A2A and A2G capabilities.

Your source is from 2002, my source is ten years later, from 2012, by people actually having used and tested the radar. What a customer says is a decisive factor, IMO.

Now he’s bothered about concurrency.

I’ve just spent some time on EF Starstreak forum today and found a thread dealing with Captor-E. There are some very well informed guys there, with seemingly impressive knowledge about the thing.. Especially the poster Scorpion is able to describe the technical details much better and more detailed than I ever could..

Everyone can go through the whole thread but here is a brief summary of what he has to say… Most of the info is on page 3/4 and is dated Jan 2015.

1) Captor-E uses back-end (processor, receiver..) from Captor-M.
2) An all new back-end does not exist yet, new hardware incl. new multichannel receiver is in the pipeline under EAP (Extended Assessment Phase) project (no exact date given)
3) EF partner nations plan to induct the AESA radar (IOC type, read Mk1+) in 2021 and beyond. While quite disappointing, this was a rational decision..
4) Current radar shall be called IOTE (Initial Operational Test and Evaluation). Future Mk1+ shall be called IOC (Initial Operational Capability). Mk2 shall be called EOC (Enhanced Operational Capability). There is also an export version planned (no designation or details given).

http://typhoon.starstreak.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2355&start=20

The claim of Captor-E using existing Captor-M hardware is furthermore supported by MilTech article dated Nov 2014. That is my source #8.
http://www.miltechmag.com/2014/11/captor-e-scan-radar-development.html

All in all, this pretty much confirms all my previous claims…

Actually it refutes your previous claims, since in conjunction with that below, it would mean that the Mk2, coming in 2019 has the new back-end. In your second source, the only valid one – Retaining key features, doesn’t mean retaining all features, otherwise it would just say ‘all features’ and it will use the latest technology, so into that architecture, whatever it may be, will go new processor LRUs, as well as the front end T/R modules. ‘Latest generation technology’, clearly doesn’t mean a back end from the 1990s now does it? Nor does it say, “old back end.” What it likely means, having assessed the full sentence, is that certain key elements of subsystem connectivity in the system block diagram remain unchanged but the subsystems themselves have been replaced with the ‘latest generation technology’. But this is your problem, you don’t comprehend things fully, you just pounce on the bit that fits your needs.

The new radar retains the key features of the existing CAPTOR radar architecture in order to exploit the maturity of the current much acclaimed system and will use latest generation technology to execute concurrently a full complement of air-to-air and air-to-surface tasks.

Your second source also only looks at the Euroradar development path and, as previously mentioned, the UK is harmonising two development paths – Euroradar and Bright Adder.

However, starstreak isn’t really that great a source always whereas the ukarmedforces blog generally is:

http://ukarmedforcescommentary.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Bright%20Adder

According to Panorama Difesa, the updated schedule for the evolution of the Typhoon starts during 2014, with the launch of the Phase 2 Enhancement program. P2E will introduce the AESA radar, which will start being available in 2015/16 and will reach its full capability with two successive releases of improvements, one in 2017 and one in 2019. The AESA radar will enable the Typhoon to fully exploit the capabilities of the Meteor long range air to air missile, included the 2-way datalink which makes the weapon a fully networked effector, capable of in-flight retargeting. The AESA will be more powerful and reliable, will track a higher number of targets simultaneously and it is also expected to be able to perform acts as a high-speed communication system (radar to radar) and an Electronic Warfare weapon, with Jamming capability.

The british AESA technology demonstrator, the Bright Adder, is said to be particularly focused on the EW function.

The AESA situation is complex, as there are, effectively, two different evolution paths which will be harmonized into the final product: in addition to the British Bright Adder demonstrator, the Euroradar consortium, led by SELEX Galileo and comprising Cassidian and Indra, is working on the Captor-E, development of which was announced at the Farnborough International Air Show on 20 July 2010.

Full capability of Mk1+. That means full A-G modes, SAR with resolution up to 0.3m, etc. It will take two updates for transition of IOTE to IOC, this will happen by 2019 and the EF core partners then can get their IOC type radars in ~2021.. It’s all clear and logical..

You are making this up off your own back. You have bent the definition of ‘full capability’ to meet your own needs. The text clearly says ‘full capability’ and then follows on by explaining what ‘full capability’ entails right afterwards. It looks like the whole radar is being replaced via LRU swaps during that period along with the necessary software updates.

There will be no EW jamming and no HS comms with IOC version. The timeline for these capabilities is not yet defined or at least hasn’t been published yet. I expect completion and induction in ~2025, full capability few years later…

You’ve made up 2025 completely, you have not one single source for that. The Rusi source suggests fleet upgrade by early 2020s to give an overall fighter airforce capability. 2025, or mid-2020s is just something you’re effectively lying about.

next time you can use font size 68 for all what’s worth but it still won’t make your nonsense any more plausible..
I am sorry, you’ve just been humiliated, again..

Plain English has words with very set meanings. ‘Full capability’ means all capabilities. It then goes on to describe all those capabilities. This is very plain English, you should learn it.