(Luft) Lockheed Martin F-35 - Lightning II

[revan]

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In the deadly pursuit of a fighter versus fighter superiority even a small advantage can have disproportionate effects on the cardinal air combat effectiveness measure – loss-exchange rates (LER).

In Russia, evolution of the Sukhoi family of fighter aircraft, and in China the revolution of the J-10B Sinocanard, shows that their designers and strategic planners are thinking about the future of air combat with a clear intent to fight and win.

Faced with the capabilities of the planned ~700 F-22A (now chopped back to 187) and over 2,000 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, they have been exploring ways of negating the effects of low observability against X-Band radar. The Sukhois have integrated Infra-Red Search and Track Systems (IRST) to detect and engage radiating aircraft with Beyond-Visual-Range (BVR) missiles, and are employing countermeasures resistant two colour Infra-Red (IR) seekers in newer missiles.

What if a fighter aircraft was fitted with a sensor system, which operates outside the radar frequencies where X-band stealth is most effective?

Shaping is a critical aspect of stealth design, since the facets and aligned edges in stealth designs bounce hostile radar returns away from the radar producing them. A stealth design shaped to beat X-band radars will lose effectiveness in the lower S-band, and become even less effective in the L-band, performance becoming progressively worse as the operating band of the radar is moved away from the design target X-band.

If a fighter, which produces a tennis ball sized radar return in the X-band, produces a basketball or beachball sized radar return in a lower band, a sensor operating in that lower band nullifies the stealth capability. The fighter built with “narrowband” X-band stealth is no longer difficult to detect and must fight it out using its aerodynamic capabilities alone.

If a sensor can bypass the stealth of the F-22A Raptor, this fighter still has sufficient aerodynamic performance to compete effectively in both Beyond Visual Range and close combat. The same is not true for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, since it is an overweight and underpowered design, incapable of competing aerodynamically against the newer Flanker variants, and completely outclassed by the latest supercruising Su-35S Flankers.

Dr Carlo Kopp of Air Power Australia explored low band AESAs embedded in fighter wing leading edges in 2007 and concluded that this concept is operationally and technically viable. Study results were not published by APA, due to the potentially adverse impact – APA has a long standing policy of not publishing concepts that might provide potential adversaries with a competitive combat advantage.

However, unbeknownst to APA, Tikhomirov NIIP were already working on this concept for two or more years, and revealed the technology at the Russian MAKS 2009 Airshow this August.

The appearance of the first L-Band Fighter Radar is an excellent example of focused and intelligent lateral thinking which targets opponents' weaknesses. This is sound technological strategy and practice on the part of Russian industry.

The new Tikhomirov NIIP L-band AESA is the first example of a technology which negates the intended X-band stealth advantage well before the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter achieves even limited operational capability.

Drawing on his earlier work, and consulting with other expert colleagues in the field, Dr Kopp has produced a detailed forensic engineering study of the new NIIP L-band AESA and explores the growth potential in the design.

While the NIIP L-Band AESA disclosed at MAKS 2009 might be considered a prototype, where the specific performance of this prototype might confer only a small combat advantage, the inevitable development of this technology confers long term and accelerating air combat advantages, both as a counter to specialized X-Band Low Observability and for the detection and disruption of sensors and digital communications systems that operate in the heavily used L-Band.

No great originality is required to deploy and further evolve this design - the back-end hardware and software from existing X-band radars can be used with modifications, and publicly disclosed US roadmap documents for X-band AESAs can be emulated. The size of the Flanker and its power generation reserves make integration and cooling low risk, easily solved, standard engineering problems.

What of China? Once the idea genie is out of the secret bottle, everybody with similar engineering and design skills can emulate the capability. China is now claimed to have four L-band AESA AWACS flying and the “cloned” J-11B Flanker B+ in production. Thus, it is entirely feasible that a Chinese equivalent L-band AESA in a J-11B could be developed and deployed in 3-5 years. China has existing technology and design skills to do this without great difficulty.

L-Band AESA technology is much cheaper to manufacture and test than X-band AESAs. Once in volume production, retrofit packages for legacy Flankers could be as cheap as US$1-2M. A likely configuration is a dual-band radar arrangement with an X-band AESA retrofit and new radar back-end, to replace legacy N001V and the N011M BARS series Flanker radars. For the new N035 IRBIS-E radar, the hybrid ESA antenna would be replaced by an AESA, and the back-end could control and process for both the L- and X-Band radar antennas. With the potential export market for many hundred units, there is a huge commercial opportunity for Tikhomirov NIIP in the short, medium and long term, once they get this product to market. There will be no shortage of highly interested clientele.....

Nun die Quelle ist bekanntermaßen streng F35 Feindlich, aber die Sache mit den L-Band ASEA Radar der Russen meldete auch Aviationweek. Ich bin nun kein Radarkenner und maße mir nun auch nicht an hier groß in Unwissen zu spekulieren was die Unterschiede sind zu einen X-Band ASEA gegen ein Stealth Flugzeug, gerade gegen die F35.

Doch das die F35 auf X-Band optimiert wurde und über keine Außergewöhnlichen Flugeigenschaften verfügt, es vielleicht mit einer F16 aufnehmen kann, ist bekannt genau wie auch der Defizit an Bewaffnung und der gegen die F22 bedeutend schlechteren Radar.

Selbst die F22 wurde meines wissen nicht in L-Band optimiert sondern ebenfalls in X-Band doch bei der F22 kann man sich wenigstens darauf verlassen das sie auch ohne Stealth noch überlegen ist. Wie gesagt ich will jetzt nicht groß spekulieren sondern mal eure Meinung dazu hören, mir macht die Sache mehr und mehr Sorgen.