And BP (fs/bw) said he wasn't going to post here any more.... just a few days ago in fact, yet now he's back with more irrelevant photos, with (as usual) unknown content and context.

 

Why doesn't it surprise me that he is still here trolling??

 

Even if the Rafale was the best dogfighting plane on earth (and it's not) it would still be redundant as an A2A platform, clutching at straws with minimal content as per BW/FS/BP and as per run-of-the-mill trolls generally.

 

 

 

The OSF photos came from an article in Air & Cosmos.  The article's big "revelation" is that it is possible to lock an optical tracking system onto an F-22.  No great surprise there.  Note that no mention is made of a context for the OSF pictures, it simply says that they occurred during ATLC.  In general though the article is actually very flattering for the F-22.  They confirm that it is extremely difficult to lock on with radar and that in WVR it has much more energy than the Rafale:

 

"Two principal parameters give the Raptor an advantage in a dogfight: its vectored thrust and the immense power of its engines, each of which gives nearly double the thrust of the M88!  Despite being much heavier than the Rafale, the F-22A is endowed with fearsome maneuverability which enables it to get out of most delicate situations in BFM; even if it bleeds a lot of energy with high-incidence maneuvers, it can quickly regain lost energy because of its engines.  But pilots emphasize that the Raptor is not invulnerable: 'Against an F-22A, it is possible for the Rafale to position itself for a gun kill, but it must do so very rapidly, otherwise the roles will reverse if the duel drags out', one French aviator summarized"

 

http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/8959/92847677.jpg" width="758" height="1083" /> 

As you say "no context" behind the photos... So let's move on to the theory.

 

In theory there is no reason why an optical tracking system, with high resolution and an accurate threat library, should not be able to resolve the approximate range and bearing of a target at short or medium ranges.

 

No one has ever suggested the F22 is invulnerable to IR missiles, the main point being that at the altitudes it is intended to operate in, where the Rafale is actually competitive) as well as the fact that it is intended to stay out of visual range in the first place mean that these photos, taken at low altitude (H's point, I speculate) are the last place you would ever expect to find it in the first place.. Completely unknown context, as I said previously.

In other words and using ASRAAM as an example, if you can cue a missile looking over the shoulder and acquire a target after firing thanks to the excellent FPA developed by Hughes (then Raytheon) you can do the same cuing from an optical system in the visible wavelengths of the EMS, the missile seeker itself is the weak point in the chain, does Mica-IR have anything like the same target acquisition range? Can it perform high-off boresight launches at range with a decent PK?? As I understand it the MICA-IR seeker is a generation behind those currently installed in AIM-9X/ASRAAM.

 

Again, there are probably circumstances in which a Rafale, at low altitude and low speeds could outmaneuver the F22, that is critically dependant on the experience and ability of the pilots... The fact that an F22 will never operationally be found in that situation, as well as the many unknown variables (do we even actually know they were dogfighting?) makes these photos just as irrelevant, my point being that the short anwer is "damn troll" and the long answer you are about to finish reading..

 

 

Note that the article does state that the OSF can provide targeting coordinates to an AAM.  This isn't really a surprise, if you can designate for an AMRAAM or an AIM-9X with a JHMCS it's certainly not that hard to do the same with a turret-mounted optic.  The hard part of course is getting the optic to acquire the target in the first place, since the primary way OSF is used is by slaving it to the radar.

Reactive

In some weird way I actually enjoy the trolling on these boards, it brings the quite a lot of knowledge and research out of the wood work from people who actually know what they are talking about (quite possibly the intention).

Kind of like a spark in to a fuel air mix, the potential energy was always there it just needed some good old fashion conflict to set the combustion cycle in motion; it's just a shame that the antagonists couldn't be more interesting or creative with they're expositions. 

The obsolescence issues of OSF are well known.  The problems with it mostly lie with the IR channel, and indeed there will be no IR channel, only an improved TV and a laser, on the new OSF being procured for the 59 aircraft in Tranche 3 that were delivered without an OSF.

 

That being said, none of the links you provided support your claim that OSF cannot be used for targeting.  Just because it is not explicitly mentioned doesn't mean it is not capable of it.  The article I linked clearly states that OSF can be used for targeting -- second paragraph in right hand column says in part, "It is also equipped with a telemetry laser which enables the precise measurement of distance to target, and thus, to furnish a target designation for the benefit of a MICA missile".   There is no reasonable reason to doubt this is the case.

 

As I said, the OSF TV / laser sensor requires something to cue it to a target.  I imagine at short range it is possible to manually aim it (dont know for sure but this makes sense), but at longer ranges it requires cueing by radar, RWR, or IR.  Since the IR channel is being removed, this hardly makes it the ultimate anti-stealth device people have claimed.

Well if a sensor is able to discriminate bearing and range (and therefore also approximate speed) it would seem incredible that such a system could not also directly be used for targeting... as long as the missile seeker has a reasonable target acquisition range and FOV this should be ample to launch a short range A2A missile...

 

Perhaps (speculation) the reason it is being called obsolescent is because it doesn't do this, but instead hands off to the primary sensors...

 

Semantics are very flimsy elements of fact from which to draw conclusions, especially when translated from French sales materials... Whether it is directly using the OSF data to generate a launch solution or not is hard to gauge...

From what I've gathered the current IR channel is :

_old tech (90s-era technology) and much better image processing technology is on the horizon

_finicky, with reliability issues (I've read pilot comments that boiled down to "it works great, when it works") 

_Sagem was supposed to provide a better sensor for the OSF-IT but what it provided was deemed too expensive for the performance improvement it brought