E-3F fairings

[Razor61]

Looking at some photos today i noticed the French E-3F now sports the same chin fairing and side canoe type fairings as the NATO E-3A/B and USAF E-3C.
It also had the refuelling probe either detached or retracted if there is such a thing now installed.

Why doesn't the RAF E-3D have the same fairings on the side of the front fuselage and the chin fairing as their counterparts, NATO, France and USA?

Or will these be added in the new improvement programme for 2008 i read somewhere?

[Magic Mushroom]

Razor,
The chin, nose and tail fairings on the French E-3Fs are for the same AYR-1 ESM system as used by the NATO and USAF jets. The French have also elected to remove their refuelling probe and rely on boom AAR. I assume that this has allowed them to reduce maintenance/currency requirements.

RAF E-3Ds have the Yellowgate ESM system in wing tip fairings rather than the AYR-1. The latter is a much better system as it's a generation or 2 ahead but the chin and cheek fairings knock about 60 mins off the endurance.

As far as an update to our E-3Ds in 2008...:mad: Suffice to say, it'll take a little bit longer than that!

Regards,
MM

[Razor61]

Many thanks for that MM. I had a feeling that the RAF examples having Yellowgate were something to do with not having one or the other fairings having not seen any wingtip mod on the NATO or USAF variants.

Thanks for the quick reply. I Won't mention the upgrade again... :\

[Lima Juliet]

Magic Mushroom

Any real aviator would know that the wingtip mounted Yellowgate acts akin to winglets on the A340, etc... More efficient wings by reducing lift-induced drag through the reduction of the wing-tip vortices (I can't remember what ATPL module that was!!). Yes, the chin and canoe fairings will increase drag but not by 60 minutes alone. However, wingtip ESM vs scabbed on ESM would be about 60 minutes different on a jet with 10 hours of flying time.

Aerodynamic lecture over.

Why do you E-3D guys have such a downer on Yellowgate? It's a sh!t-load better than the RWR/RHWR/ESM gear on most other platforms and you had it before the E3A and E3B, so you could expect it to be a generation behind the AYR-1. Anyway, I would expect the E-3D update to get the next generation above it plus a seperate RWR/MAWS/DIRCM fit to boot - shouldn't that be the much vaunted Project EAGLE?

LJ

[Release-Authorised]

LJ,

E-3A lost 60 minutes endurance AFTER it was fitted with the ESM fairings - nothing to do with a comparison with E-3D (which has much better engines anyway)! E-3A has HF aerials at the wingtips, so adds to aerodynamics. Yellowgate pods at E-3D wingtips caused HF aerials to be mounted on a fairing above the outer wing - not so good for aerodynamics (or for HF Comms).

Don't like Yellowgate because it is designed to work at low level looking for sensitive submarine snorts etc. Once you put it up to 30K feet it picks up every radar in NATO! Yet another case of kit being used for something it is not really designed to do. I can't go into other reasons here. Its better than nothing, but only just!:ouch:

[Magic Mushroom]

LJ,
As RA intimates, the pods have little effect upon lift induced drag in comparison to the E-3D's HF fairings. I don't believe that the MR2 chaps noticed any difference in fuel burn after they had YG retrofitted in the 80s. My understanding is that the D's HF fairings actually did act in a similar fashion to winglets; I've personally also never seen any noticable difference in HF performance between an E-3D and other variants.

As far as the op utility of YG goes, yes it is better than an RHWR but a C2 platform needs more than just an RHWR!! I would disagree with RA that its the amount it detects which causes the problems. If you put any modern ESM system at 30K it'll (hopefully!) detect a lot. There are other factors that dictate how useful or otherwise it is but as RA says, this is nor the forum to discuss such things. Hopefully EAGLE will improve things, but given current funding issues, I wouldn't bet on it.

Regards,
MM

[Yeller_Gait]

RA,

Not sure what you are basing your facts on, and why you are so down on Yellow Gate, but for your information ...

Yellow Gate was never designed for low level operations in Nimrod MR2, it was originally the RWR from the F15A, known as Loral 1017A. If my memory is correct it was destined for the Nimrod AEW 3, hence it being fitted to the E-3D, in addition to the MR2.

Yellow Gate is, and always has been, an RWR processor that has been programmed as an ESM search system for most of its life on MR2 and E-3D.

The major limitation of Yellow Gate is not the processor but the aerials which give poor/unreliable direction finding.


Y_G

[TheSmiter]

Don't like Yellowgate because it is designed to work at low level looking for sensitive submarine snorts etc

All these years and I didn't know that :ooh:
Am going straight into work and put a Tacrec in - Get thee gone Searchwater!!!

Oh just a quickie, I thought it was an unwritten rule that we didn't discuss capabilities, or does that not apply to legacy eqpt? :oh:

Anyway, I like YG; obviously not as much as ARAR/ARAX - now that was a good piece of kit and kept the old Masters nice and warm with that wonderful valve technology! Marvellous :ok:

[circle kay]

Smiter,

If the E3D had the real YellowGate control tray instead of that ‘Boeing’ plugy button thingy then they would be able to keep there hands warm with that. But I suppose that the Temperature is controlled to within 0.1C on the carpeted CRC in the Sky:rolleyes: