
swiss wrote:
Hello Ric.![]()
I talked only bout the Air to Air domain. Were the EF scored with 3 and the SH with 2.
No doubt, the SH is the better multirole fighter than the Typhoon.
Hi Swiss,
Could you share (or do you have a link to the) document that states that score above?
Note that I'm not doubting you. I'm asking this because I couldn't find that source (despite trying to look for it).
By the way and in the sequence of one of your previously posts, it is important to once again to mention and notice that I'm not saying that Super Hornet is better (or not) than X or Y fighter aircraft like the Rafale or Typhoon in the Air-to-Air domain in "overall terms".
What I'm saying that in an eventual air-to-air confrontation between a SH and a Rafale, the SH would have the advantage in terms of Radar (again this is what we're discussing here, not the aircraft's general capabilities) and the number of air-to-air missiles carried while the Rafale would have the advantage over the SH in other features.
swiss wrote:Agreed, according to this article you were right. But this article was written in January 2005 bevor the APG-79 completed formal operational evaluation (OPEVAL) testing in December 2006. And after that the DOT&E reported:
assessing it as not operationally effective or suitable due to significant deficiencies in tactical performance, reliability, and BIT functionality.
Andoperational 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.
So sorry, i can not believe after such statements, the APG-79 have 2 or even 3 times better Range than the APG-73. They clearly talk also about performance.
We will defiantly not find an agreement here.![]()
Independently of what we choose to agree or believe (or not), I don't think that you can directly relate the "APG-79 not meeting some requirements" with achieving or not the 2 to 3 or more than 3 times the detection range compared to the APG-73 since if this was actually to be a requirement for the radar, it would only be one among many, many others.
I believe that hornetfinn pretty much summed it up in the following part:
hornetfinn wrote:It might be that AN/APG-79 has not met requirements whereas RBE2 AESA has, even if AN/APG-79 was more capable system. I do think that all these AESA radars offer very significant performance and reliability improvements over the previous MSA/PESA systems.
Anyway and trying my best to complement what hornetfinn mentioned above, there's a lot of other reasons why the APG-79 couldn't have met some of the requirements on that 2006 OPEVAL which may not involve in any way the detection range.
I venture to mention/speculate a few:
- For example I remember that one of the APG-79 requirements was to operate with both air-to-air and air-to-ground modes simultaneously specially when fitted on the F/A-18F. Perhaps this could have been a requirement that wasn't met (or fully met) during that OPEVAL.
- And/or the APG-79 could have had a requirement to be able to track a certain number of air-to-ar targets simultaneously but only a lower number was demonstrated during that same OPEVAL.
- Or like I previously said, the APG-79 during that same OPEVAL needed more maintenance man/hours compared to requirements.
- etc...
So as you can see, none of the above is in any way related to Air-to-Air target detection but could have been more than reasons to be mentioned on that OPEVAL report as the "APG-79 not meeting (some) of its requirements".
Moreover and like you said, that OPEVAL happened in 2006 but we are now in 2019.
So many things have happened in the meanwhile namely such as likely the fix of many/most of the issues reported on that same OPEVAL.
swiss wrote:ricnunes wrote:Moreover, there's also what marsavian correctly said:
- The APG-79 has more T-R modules than the RBE AESA.
(this makes a very diference regarding AESA radars, which both RBE AESA and APG-79 are)
This is correct. As far as i know. If they are technical on same level and trouble free.![]()
Well, we know (and we can read on hornetfinn's post) the APG-79's processor was updated several times while according to the information that we have, currently the RBE AESA is the same (with the same backend) as the RBE PESA but with an AESA antenna.
Sure that the RBE is scheduled to receive upgrades on its backend but then again is the APG-79.
As such, I would say that if one of the two radar (APG-79 or RBE AESA) is in an "upper" or more "advanced level", that would be the APG-79.