More than a decade behind the U.S., the first European fighter equipped with an active, electronically scanned array (AESA) radar has been delivered to a customer.
Dassault delivered Rafale serial number C137, the first production aircraft equipped with a Thales RBE2 AESA, to French defense procurement agency DGA on Oct. 2.
The aircraft will be used by the French air force trials center CEAM at Mont-de-Marsan for operational evaluation of the new radar. Development flight testing is complete.
Production deliveries to operational units will not begin until mid-2013, Dassault says, as another five or six Rafales with mechanically scanned RBE radars remain to be delivered.
U.S. manufacturers, meanwhile, are moving to tap a potential 1,000-aircraft market to upgrade Lockheed Martin F-16s with AESAs, beginning with Taiwan, South Korea and the U.S. Air Force itself.
Spurred by the expectations of the export market, European fighter manufacturers are moving to catch up with their U.S. rivals on offering active-array radars. Availability of Thales’ RBE2 AESA on the Rafale was a key element in Dassault’s January victory in India’s 126-fighter medium multi-role combat aircraft competition.
In July, the four European nations behind the Typhoon fighter, which lost in India, asked the Eurofighter consortium for firm proposals to develop an AESA for fielding in 2015. Eurofighter and the Selex Galileo-led Euroradar consortium already are working on an AESA on industry funds, but a formal development contract is expected early next year.
Eurofighter, meanwhile, has begun flight testing the final set of Phase 1 Enhancements (P1E) for the Typhoon. Accomplished through two separate software releases, the P1E “robust simultaneous multirole capability” upgrade will establish the aircraft baseline for the AESA upgrade, Eurofighter says.
Upgrades
P1E upgrades to Tranche 2 production aircraft and structural changes in Tranche 3a will introduce provisions for the electronically scanned radar, the consortium says. The wing and rear fuselage for the first Tranche 3a Typhoon were delivered by Alenia Aermacchi to BAE Systems in late September.
Availability of an AESA is key in South Korea, where Eurofighter is competing against the Boeing F-15SE Silent Eagle and Lockheed Martin F-35 for a 60-aircraft order, with a decision expected as early as this month.
Korea plans to retrofit 134 F-16C/Ds with AESAs and has selected BAE Systems to lead the aircraft’s upgrade, but is conducting a separate competition for the radar, with incumbent Northrop Grumman offering its Sabr AESA against Raytheon’s Racr.
Lockheed Martin has been awarded the $1.85 billion contract to upgrade 145 Taiwanese F-16A/Bs, but Taiwan plans to use the AESA that the U.S. Air Force selects for its 300-aircraft F-16C/D Combat Aviation Programmed Extension Suite (Capes) upgrade.
“Taiwan has asked the U.S. government to select an AESA for them as part of the Air Force plan,” says Jim Hvizd, who is leading Raytheon’s Racr sales campaign. “Korea has a slightly different approach and is conducting its own competitive assessment.”
“Korea is working loosely with the Air Force, but Taiwan is tightly coupled,” says Joe Ensor, vice president and general manager of Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems’ intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting systems division.
A U.S. Air Force request for proposals for an AESA upgrade for domestic and international F-16s is expected “any day now,” Ensor says, with award of a contract expected in the third or fourth quarter of next year.
Initial operational capability of the Air Force’s Capes upgrade is planned for 2018, which will pace foreign military sales availability of an AESA for international F-16 operators. “The earliest Taiwan could get it is 2017,” Ensor believes.
Both Northrop and Raytheon plan to offer a single baseline standard of AESA radar for both U.S. F-16C/Ds and Taiwanese F-16A/Bs, as well as subsequent customers, with Singapore in initial discussions to upgrade 60 F-16C/Ds.
For Europe, meanwhile, the availably of active-array radars in the Rafale and Saab Gripen NG could prove crucial in the Brazilian competition against the AESA-equipped Boeing F/A-18E/F for a 36-aircraft order, now expected to be decided by mid-2013.
– This article first appeared in Aerospace Daily & Defense Report.
– by Graham Warwick
{ 48 comments… read them below or add one }
Good AESA radars on the EF-2000 and F-15C are great upgrades some say very soon new radars will make Stealth technology obsolete dont forget the USAF is on 3rd gen Stealth tech China is barely making gen 1 tech. New radars can make China's stealth fighter obsolete before they even enter service in several years.
Not obsolete by any long shot, but in a race where one tries to be as stealthy as possible and thus requiring a better radar to improve the range of the detection of said stealthy object… it is inevitable that one will have to improve BOTH stealth characteristic AND the radar.
detection is relative after all… the problem was never about NOT being detected at all (that's not what stealth goal is on 5th gen aircraft), the problem is at WHAT RANGE can they be detected and detected reliably at that for weapon targeting.
even if china's new aircraft or russian, or whoever else did not go towards the path of stealth, if they have a better radar then we lose still since they would be able to detect us further than we can detect them and thus giving them the advantage. If we have stealth but not a good radar then they will not be able to detect us until they get closer to us, but at the same time our poor radar can't detect them either till they get closer resulting in a net effect of ZERO (in simplified form).
to win the future aerial engagement, one needs BOTH at once… stealth characteristic to reduce the effective detection range of the enemy radar, AND a good radar for ourselves to make sure we can detect them BEFORE we enter their effective detection range.
Good analysis!!
Id say Russia is 10 year behind the west and China 15 years. Don't over fear them but work on modernization of Eagles and falcons and keep F-22s current. Sack the F-35.
Overall Stealth is way over rated since radar tech is starting to detect stealth tech and China is way behind so new radars can detect older steal tech.
Good thoughts Melcyna but Stealth is way over rated.
Great comment Lance. You forgot the part where China and Russia are more than willing to pay US technicans, Military Officers and Politicans for 5-10-15 years of advancement.
Unfortunately, there have always been Americans ready and willing to accept that bounty and give up American Advances.
So tell me what kind of radar is a russian S-400 System using?
Perhaps, but over rated or not it's a mandatory requirement for the future…
if both sides have equally good radar, but one side have a stealth feature that allows them to be closer to the enemy by even 10 km before their radar picks it up… then that's 10km of distance during which their radar can pick the enemy first and possibly fire.
there's no avoiding either in the future… the radar will improve and thus the method to AVOID or REDUCE said radar effectiveness, and this race will continue onward forever till something that completely changes the landscape of warfare arrives.
To reiterate, there's no 'MAGIC radar' that defeats stealth completely… nor is there a 'MAGIC stealth' that renders them undetectable…
EVERYTHING regarding to both are in relative term… some new radar may have better resolution for example and can detect the old stealth aircraft from 100km away, THAT'S STILL BETTER than having no stealth where it may be detected as far as 200km away etc…
And perhaps with the modern stealth features that range can be shortened still to 50km for example.
get close enough, and you can detect any stealth aircraft in the world, the question is HOW CLOSE do you have to be to detect him. Conversely, any stealth feature built into an aircraft will still be beneficial to the aircraft in all likelihood despite advancement in radar compared to having NO stealth feature.
Unless of course if you sacrifice a whole good deal of other characteristic for said stealth feature… then we may have a problem.
mby that can happen but stealth technology can get better also befor radar can detect it but either way it can go new and better radar is very important.im glad to see our allies using better TEC
Its funny because I was just looking at :
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2012-09/…
the other day. Through the span of 5 minutes, Taiwan got hit a majority of the time.
Why do you leave out of the article all of the Israeli AESA radars that have been delivered to customers?
Some examples are the EL/M-2052, EL/W-2085 and EL/W-2090.
Israel is not in Europe.
The only occasionally get counted as Europeans in sports etc cuz the Asians don't want them.
This actually does not make me happy. The French sell weapons to countries that could potentially become our enemies in the near future. All I see here is an increased opportunity for our enemies to get AESA radar technology.
Gaddafi stringed the French along with the Rafale purchase till they could wait no longer and gave him a live fire demonstration.
Good thing the United States never armed people who would fly planes into buildings. Or gave Saddam WMD.
Don’t forget the faked moon landings and that the Bush family funded the rise of the Nazis.
The Russian already got their own AESA radar, said to be from nanotechnology. What to fear about the french developing their own?
For once, I agree with you black owl.
Blackowl, if your not a Romney supporter, you are now.
http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline/2012/10/romney-plans-if-he-wins-to-add.html
"Plans to create an 11th carrier air wing, one for each aircraft carrier."
There are ten Nims, plus the Enterprise. So as each Ford is completed, Enterprise and a Nim will go.
"Q. There’s no current Navy requirement for a fleet frigate.
A. The LCS has many useful roles, but one of them is not deploying with the battle groups. It doesn’t have the range."
http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/littoral…
Scarily, the naval-technology blurb suggests range is important, when it says: "The two designs are quite different, although both satisfy the top-level performance requirements and technical requirements of the LCS programme. Both achieve sprint speeds of over 40kt and long-range transit distances of over 3,500 miles."
Of course, we all know this is cruising as opposed to sprint, which is less than half that.
"Q. Would you review the LCS program?
A. I’ll always be reviewing it, but there’s no intention to cancel it. We’re very much in favor of a high-low mix and having deployable ships. "
…
There's a comment re Super Hornet production stops. The last agreed-to-purchase was signed in 2010 to be completed by 2014. What's implicit is that the Navy hasn't budgeted for additional procurements, and this is effectively end of the line for the Super Hornet.
And..
"Q. One carrier is always in a long-term refueling overhaul. What would you do with that extra wing?
A. We would go back to keeping a reserve wing fully modernized with the same equipment as an active air wing. And the ability to surge and get whatever carrier that’s in overhaul out quickly — and there’s nothing written in stone that a refueling overhaul has to take four years. They didn’t used to take that long. If there’s an emergency, remember what was done in World War II, how fast the carriers in dry dock were brought out and repaired. You can’t just throw together an air wing like that. The principle is we would have an air wing for every deck."
Not sure if R can be made faster. Refueling is a fairly involved process, and I imagine during wartime you would skip that step if you could or push it off. Perhaps in wartime if battle damage were severe enough that the flight deck around the reactor had to be partially rebuilt, one could just go ahead and remove the reactor (and perhaps you might have to if you weren't confident that the reactor had sustained no damage).
Fun question. If the reactor is damaged and there's a modest leak of radioactivity in the ship, how long would it take to contain, remove the reactor, ship it to Hanford and replace it, then decon the ship and repair the damage?
http://www.defensenews.com/article/20121007/DEFRE…
At least they're recognizing the manpower bloat issue (one that the hated Carl Meyer loves so much, and I don't fault him for going after them on manpower)
"All of the services have had a gross distortion put in, because they have to man their share of so many of these new, [joint task forces] that have been created, more for bureaucratic reasons. There are now 250 joint task forces, and they all require uniformed manning from all the services. Most of that is driven by Goldwater-Nichols, because you had to create joint billets so that every officer could get their four years on a joint staff.
And the Joint Staff itself in the Pentagon is, according to the Defense Business Board, almost three times the size of what it was during the Reagan administration, with half the size of the force.
So there’s been this bureaucratic bloat, not driven by intention, but by the fact that all these new offices are created in [the Pentagon] and in the combatant commands and the functional commands, that you have to provide people for them. There’s just not a requirement for that. So that needs to really have a real serious scrub, and those billets freed up for our operational sailors."
Sooo why does an article about the Dassault Rafale both lead with a picture of the Eurofighter Typhoon AND use the latter's name in the actual title?
Dunno about the image, but with regard with the name in this case they are referring to not the "EuroFighter" per say but Euro Fighter in the sense that it is a fighter aircraft produced or used by the european side.
to quote the line "the first European fighter equipped with an active, electronically scanned array (AESA) radar has been delivered to a customer."
The US isn't the only country that can sell weapons to countries that could potentially become their enemies :-)
On a more seious note, the French did help Britain with the Exocet threat during the Falklands war. So it might actually be better to let the an ally sell weapons (Yes, France is an ally, really. Not a best buddy but certainly an ally) then to let those countries buy Russian or Chinese weapons. Because they will buy weapons from someone.
Apparently those cheese-eating surrender monkeys surrendered the Iraqi IADS blueprints (which they built) to Uncle Sam back in ODS.
Grounds keeper Willie. Classic!!!
To be fair, the French had soldiers serving in ODS; so it served their interests to not lose their own soldiers and pilots to gear they had supplied the Iraqis.
How did the french help the brits in 1982? The Exocet missiles built for export were all fitted with a radio receiver through which a signal to blow up the missile could be sent in the event it was launched at a french warship. The brits went to war without the french radiotransmitters needed to blow up the exocets. Dozens of sailors were killed and several ships sunk. After the war the french sold exocets to many countries, and so they had let many british sailors die to make some money. What a good ally.
good point
Many more kills came from iron bombs…all from American Skyhawks.
Most of the bombs dropped from Skyhawks did not explode because they were dropped too low for the bombs to arm.
Many Americans who had worked with these bombs understood exactly what was happening but did not speak up. If the Argies had disabled the bombs' safety devices, there would have been many, many more dead Brits if they had. In fact, the Brits would have lost the war if those bombs had exploded.
Your story about the radio receiver is utterly fanciful. Such a device would be easily spotted and disabled by the country using the missile.
No country would voluntarily go to war with weapons that could be sabotaged.
Just silly.
This pages editorial staff is in the pisser. Hire a proof reader, or make a intern slot for a English major student.
The radar which remain to delivered aren't "Mechanically" but Passive ESA
Reply to Montaudran, Ron, etc.
France not being a anglo-saxon country, it is not believe to be able to develop some technology which could match the Us one, as France was not believe to be able to develop its own nuclear deterrence force.
Therefore:
- the title "Euro fighter" referring to the Eurofighter typhoon – produces by anglo-saxons (UK, Germany);
- the picture: an eurofighter instead of a Rafale;
- the text: France has still Mechanically scanned array radar in service, although indeed we are having PESA; and
- the article follows on with the Eurofighter which try to catch the AESA track also, and the upgrade perspectives of the F-16.
How to be surprise that French are "cold" allies as they are treated as "untermenschen" since the end of the WW2 ?
This also apply in the French research superstructure, where clearly it is not allowed to be in at the forefront of research (what was the case of France before 1940), but just behind…
Correct me if I’m wrong but us arms agreement states that even if we sell AESA RADARs to the French the French could not turn around and sell thoughs jets to a not so friendly nation without U.S. approval
Like Ron, I think that a picture of Rafale would not have been wrong to illustrate this article…. Like this http://www.defense.gouv.fr/var/dicod/storage/imag…
Jmos, this radar is 100% Thales made in France & UK. Not U.S.
Designed and made, of course
Reply to Montaudran, Ron, etc.
France not being an anglo-saxon country, it is not believed to be able to develop some technology which could match the US one, in thge same manner as France was not believed to be able to develop its own nuclear deterrence force.
Therefore:
- the title "Euro fighter" referring to the Eurofighter typhoon – produces by anglo-saxons (UK, Germany) instead of Rafale;
- the picture: an Eurofighter typhoon instead of a Rafale;
- the text: France has still mechanically scanned array radar in service, although indeed we are having PESA on all the Rafales except the # C137; and
- the article follows on with the Eurofighter which try to catch the AESA track also, and similar upgrade perspectives of the F-16.
How to be surprise that French are "cold" allies as they are seen as sub-capable human beings since the end of the WW2 ?
This also apply in the French research superstructure, where clearly it is therein not allowed to be in at the forefront of research (what was the case of France before 1940), but just behind…
The same treatment applies to the slavic peoples, especially the Russians (Soviets were the first to have an ESA radar on a fighter, i.e. the Mig-31, at the very beginning of the 80's).
It may have to do with de Gaulle's partial withdrawal of the French military from direct command and control by NATO: or it may be an effect of the post-WW2 intimate collaboration between the US and UK. The writing has been on the wall for decades, and it's hard to beat that kind of intimate working relationship. Certainly the common cultural background (at least a few hundred years ago) set the early foundations of the relationship between both nations, even though one was formed by secession from the other.
Good call Cazimir, The French are independent, but are a good ally. Most of the killing off of the Original Al-Queda and their direct Taliban support in 2001-2002 was done by the French Special Forces, not the USA. I was in 1st SFG and was there. My other thought on this is that the British tied their wagon to the USA for 60+ years thru everything they have supported us. What did it get them. A near extinct Aircraft Industry, a useless Navy, and a defense budget almost the size of Bhutan's. Ever wonder what would have happened if the Brits had stayed with the French 3 decades ago on the Future fighter program? They would have 2 new CVAs equipped with a more advanced Rafale(F-5?) and they would be in service, they would not have wasted Billions in planning on fiasco Aircraft Carriers and not be on the hook for $billions waiting on the Fighter that will never come, the F-35.
Be interesting to see if they can use that radar as an EW/IW capability
Why is that a question to you? Rafale(as well as Gripen C-D) is not welcome back to Red Flag or Green Flag in the USA. Why? Because your not supposed to kick ass on the USAF, at their big dance, with your OLD, VERY Limited radar. Very advanced equipment and people in the FAF. And a government that is willing to use it.
cough, cough….. ********. Im not saying they didnt kick ***, I want to see your proof that they are not welcome back.
I see you now Cow Boy do you see me
This development represents the precarious technological advantage of the F35 over its rivals.
Back in 2003 the IOC for the Royal Navy’s F35 was to be this year, with the aircraft having been in US operational service for a couple of years already; now the UK F35′s IOC is not until 2019.
Other European and North American manufacturers have been given a grace period of several years, time in which to introduce AESA radar and other hardware and software improvements to their products. Not good news for LM.
It's not a good news for LM, but a good one for America. Having the f-22 showing its limits during simulation against a typhoon in a dogfight might be an embarrassment but it's way better than having pilots not coming back from a dogfight against a T-50! The same apply for the f-35. Better to have our allied undermining its stealth tradeoff rather than suddently realizing that it doesn't work as expected, in the middle of a battle…
Scanning or tracking?
Amusingly, the S-400 has M, LR and ELR missiles, a TMD variant of the LR missile.
A "panoramic radar", plus multifunction units that deploy with or near the TEL.
And strangely enough, the Russians may export versions to the South Koreans or the Saudis… http://articles.janes.com/articles/Janes-Strategi… http://www.defencetalk.com/kmsam-program-achieves…