What is wrong with Foxhunter?
Some of you might be surprised to see me taking an interest in an aircraft other than the Sea Harrier, and you can see my dark blue bias miles off, and maybe I'm a tw@t who is talking nonsense but......
Correct my if I am wrong, but isn't the Foxhunter radar VERY powerful? Obviously the technical details of radar systems is classified, but I don't believe that it can be a problem with the microwave (tubes, amplifiers, antennae et al) side of the radar. After all it does have a good range, lots of power, and was developed to give a BVR capability with Skyflash.
I would guess that the problem is more likely to be something to do with the signal processing and (particularly) software side of things. Surely this can be modified? Modern systems are software driven, which means they can be modified with relative ease. Why can't the MOD get BAE Systems, AEI, ERA, the DPA, Qinetiq or the RAF thelmselves (plenty of good Engineers in light blue) or a combination of them to sort out what the problem is (AMRAAM not getting the right sort of data) and then modify OR re-write the software?
Didn't the Luftwaffe make theit Phantoms AMRAAM capable by retrofitting them with APG-65 radar? Why can't we do the same, perhaps getting BAES to knock out some more sets of Blue Vixen?