Does the J-20 have RAM all over the aircraft or only on hot spots? Any documentation or images on this?
J-20 5th Generation Fighter VII
- Thread starter siegecrossbow
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Interesting. So far there is no "TheDrive" analysis on it.
Isn't under development and in testing the same thing? You have to do testing to find out what to fix which is the part of the development stage the engine should be in right now.
lcloo
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The little news that we have indicate that WS-15 is now in flight testing stage, and test results are encouraging. Hopefully, by 2025 we may see initial pilot production.
To what degree are E-3 insufficient and what constitutes timely detection in what situations is another matter but as far as we're talking about how old E-3 are, one has to separate the airframe and the radar.
So while E-3 as a whole platform is quite old, the radar parts of the USAF variants are actually not AS old.
The AN APY-2 radars were originally delivered to E-3 block 20 in 1984.
End of Cold war then prolonged modernization so from 1997 to 2001 USAF planes were modernized to block 30/35, which modernized the backend hardware on the radar, and added an extensive ESM suite.
30/35 was really a stopgap measure as RSIP program was delivered almost right away after that. RSIP radars were delivered to all USAF E-3 by 2005, bringing hardware/software changes to enable new waveforms, and new signal processing algorithms.
Among other things RSIP goals were to improve range, improve resistance to countermeasures and improve ability to detect low RCS targets. Ability to detect targets with 10 times smaller RCS than non-RSIP radars can sometimes be read about,
though not specified at what ranges. Northrop Grumman did specify though that RSIP brought twice the range of the original E-3 radar.
Then the block 40/45 upgrade came, with deliveries starting in 2015.
It had the backend hardware completely changed with a modern processor, and a new software running the whole system is used. That variant is experiencing various reliability issues, so even though the whole fleet was upgraded, actual full operational capability has not yet been declared.
RAF's E-3's were for example not as modernized. And thus they were recently retired. There was a program called CSP, which would have brought the E-3 fleet to roughly where block 40/45 were, but in the end RAF decided it'd get a whole new plane instead.
Here is the thing though. Despite radar upgrades I assume the new radar still uses a rotodome, and therein lies part of the problem. It takes longer for a mechanically moving array to complete a 360 degree scan of the immediate area than a fixed AESA solution, which should hypothetically have 360 degree real time coverage (in reality probably not that good, but you get my drift). Low RCS aircraft, especially one flying at high speed, may escape due to low update rate from the radar.
No stealth fighter has RAM applied all over the aircraft. That would be way too heavy. If I am not mistaken they are only applied to areas with stronger than usual radar returns. That said, control surfaces are honey combed internally to reduce radar returns.
The articles themselves are usually pretty good but the comments section… Sweet lord. They probably don’t want to upset the “fan base”.
That said I expect an article from RUSI pretty soon, and another one from Air Force Academy.
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