Aircraft Carriers II (Closed to posting)

FORBIN said:

MiG-29K Deck ops on INS Vikramaditya Compiltion

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=960901243962395

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Article said:

Russian-made MiG-29K/KUB fighters will make up the mainstay of the new Vikrant’s CAG, too. During 2009-2011 the MiG corporation has supplied the Indian Navy with the 16 MiG-29K/KUB aircraft under the first contract made in 2004 and in late 2012 began deliveries of 29 fighters more under the second contract signed in 2010. The first four MiGs under this deal were handed over to the customer in late 2012 with seven more followed them in 2013. The next six MiG-29K/KUB fighters were delivered to India last year. Overall, the air arm of the Indian Navy is to receive 45 MiG-29K/KUB fighters under the two deals of which more than 30 have been already delivered. The activation of 303 Sqn (Black Panthers) on MiG-29K/KUB aircraft by the Indian Navy took place in a ceremony at INS Hansa, Goa state, on 1 May 2013.

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Indian & French aircraft carriers (Vikramaditya & Charles de Gaulle) to lead joint naval exercise Varuna from April 23 in the Arabian Sea.

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India and France will now hold a major aero-naval exercise under the Varuna series off the coast of Goa in April 2015, which is likely to see the participation of the French nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle.

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The French fleet will include a Carrier Battle Group (CBG) led by an aircraft carrier, most likely the FNS Charles De Gaulle (R91), two destroyers, a supply ship and a nuclear powered submarine. The annual exercise is a part of Indo-French bilateral defence and diplomatic ties, which will see ships and aircraft from both the navies practicing ‘cross deck’ operations, mid-sea refueling and anti-submarine warfare (ASW). The Charles De Gaulle will carry the naval version of the Dassault Rafale fighter aircraft, which is seeing contentious negotiations between the two countries to be sold to the Indian Air Force (IAF).

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the decision was based on economics and need.

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could save up to $120 million on the second ship

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the Ford now will be the only ship in the fleet to operate the full system.

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In something of a surprise move, the US Navy revealed the long-touted dual band radar (DBR) being installed in new carriers of the Gerald R. Ford class will only be fitted on the first ship, and a new, yet-to-be-chosen radar will be installed on subsequent ships.

The revelation came Tuesday as Rear Adm. Thomas Moore, program executive officer for aircraft carriers, spoke at the McAleese Credit Suisse defense conference in Washington.

Moore indicated the move, decided upon last fall, was not due to particular problems with the DBR, now under development by Raytheon. Rather, he said, the decision was based on economics and need.

"It's a very capable radar," he said of the DBR, but analysis showed the carrier didn't need all the system's capabilities. The move to the EASR, he told reporters, could save up to $120 million on the second ship, the John F. Kennedy.

A specific EASR radar has not been chosen, Moore said, noting that "several candidates" were on the market.

Raytheon has been working on the EASR oncept under a $6 million study and demonstration contract awarded in June 2014 by the Office of Naval Research. The ONR study, according to a press release, is intended to "leverage proven Radar Modular Assembly (RMA) architecture matured on Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR)." The EASR, like the AMDR — also under development by Raytheon to replace SPY-1 radars in new Aegis combat systems — is intended to be a scalable family of radars tailored to suit different sizes of ships.

The complex DBR suite was once intended to be a cornerstone of a new combat system, fitted on DDG 1000 Zumwalt-class destroyers and CVN 78 Ford-class carriers. The system combines a SPY-3 X-band multifunction radar with a SPY-4 S-band volume search radar.

The Navy decided in 2010 to remove the SPY-4 radar from the Zumwalt destroyers as a cost-reduction move, although the carriers were to retain the original configuration.

With the decision to remove the DBR from subsequent ships of the class, the Ford now will be the only ship in the fleet to operate the full system.

A spokeswoman for the Naval Sea Systems Command said an EASR Request for Proposals "should be forthcoming."

The Ford, Kennedy and all other US aircraft carriers are built at the Huntington Ingalls Shipbuilding shipyard in Newport News, Virginia.

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... the Gerald R. Ford class will only be fitted on the first ship, and a new, yet-to-be-chosen radar will be installed on subsequent ships.

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Equation said:

Just curious why is that? Is the USS Gerald R. Ford design to be different than any other future carriers of the same class or am I reading it wrong?

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SamuraiBlue said:

Basically the US Navy doesn't have a radar system that fits their needs at the moment but I think a X-band is completely unnecessary for a aircraft carrier since those are used for illuminating a target.

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