PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Belgium selects F-35 over Typhoon
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Old 29th Oct 2018, 14:40
  #64 (permalink)  
LowObservable
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Far West Wessex
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What AESA gives you is ultra low latency - because you dont wait for the next sweep to update a track.

When I heard John Roulston brief Captor in 2002, he stressed that the radar was engineered with a lightweight antenna, robust gimbals and big motors so that it was not stuck in a constant raster pattern. It could intersperse the search raster with loopbacks to hit high-priority targets. Roulston (correctly) believed that AESA was not ready (even the APG-79 had a lot of bugs that needed to be worked out) and that commercial RF technology would make it less costly and more efficient in a later generation. Edinburgh was also talking about repositioners by the early 2000s, to support "shoot and crank" tactics with Meteor-type weapons.

Returning to the land of moules and lambic: while Eurofighter was not selected, they seem to have given the Borg a harder time than before, unless the Belgians are telling porkies about their terms. Not only do they seem to have secured a lower price than the partners, but by buying in 2021 they should get the new processor and displays, without being assessed for a share of R&D or having to pony up for upgrades on pre-2021 jets.
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