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Subject:
Rafale AESA and Supercruise
Bluewings
3/30/2006 5:33:18 PM
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| Since few US posters don 't believe what FrenchStratege and myself are saying , it is time to clear ANY doubt on some important issues .
Rafale HAS an AESA radar and Rafale CAN supercruise .
#1: AESA :
"In April 2002, the DGA, the French defence procurement agency, appointed Thales to develop an active array radar demonstrator optimised for the Rafale omnirole fighter. Called DRAA (Démonstrateur Radar à Antenne Active, or Active Array Radar Demonstrator), the programme culminated in a series of demanding flight tests to validate its detection performance. Although the development schedule was
extremely tight, the DRAA met all programme milestones on time. This Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) demonstrator will pave the way to a production equipment for the Rafale.
With the adoption of an active antenna, RBE2 radar performance will be
even further increased : detection and tracking ranges will be significantly improved, angular coverage will be considerably expanded and reliability will be boosted to unprecedented levels.
Test-flying the DRAA
In December 2002, the first flight of the AESA system was carried out in a Mystere XX flying test bed belonging to the French MoD located in the Flight Test Centre at Cazaux (South-West of France). Subsequently, the DRAA demonstrator was fitted to two-seat production Rafale B301. ?For us, it was essential to prove to our customers that we could
easily fit a new array to the existing RBE2 hardware, stresses Jean-Marc Goujon, Rafale Radar Programme Manager. As such, one of the main goals of the DRAA programme was to demonstrate that the new array could easily be fitted to the B301?s current RBE2 electronic scanning radar without any modifications of the whole radar architecture. This modification was a total success, Thales and Dassault engineers being able to complete the task in less than three hours! This is a considerable achievement that proves impossible for our competitors who would have to completely redesign and rebuild their radar sets to
accommodate an AESA.? The first flight in Rafale B301
was recorded from Istres in May 2003. During the comprehensive flight test programme, the fully integrated Band X DRAA radar successfully transmitted, received and collected radar data, confirming all Thales prediction, a clear indication that the company totally masters AESA
technology "
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#2: SUPERCRUISE :
(From 2 Pilots of the 12F Squadron onboard CdG)
«The Rafale is ideal for the job, stresses one of the two duty pilots.
It can climb to 40,000 feet in under two minutes and accelerate very rapidly to supersonic speed. More significantly, it can super-cruise in dry power, even with four missiles and a belly drop tank. Endurance is excellent too, and we can stay airborne up to two hours with one tank.» The pilots also praise the Rafale?s advanced man-machine
interface which considerably reduces their workload"
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I hope is it clear for everybody .
As usual , I can upload the Pdf. file for your enjoyement .
Cheers . |
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