Jets & Planes but no UAV's here.

[DRG]

The British military just keeps dwindling.

IHS Jane’s reports that the Royal Air Force has retired its only dedicated anti-radiation missile used to destroy enemy radars.

The news might seem relatively minor. But the ability to suppress and destroy enemy radars is crucial, particularly with Russia and China developing increasingly advanced air defense systems.
During the opening hours of a conflict—such as the 2011 air war over Libya—one of the first priorities for a modern air force is to make it as hard as possible for the enemy to see, track and shoot down your planes.
For the RAF, the ALARM missile was the weapon of choice. Capable of being fired from a Tornado attack jet 58 miles away from a target, the missile traveled up to 1,525 miles per hour, using its sensors to home in on faint—but perceptible—radar signatures.
The ALARM had some other tricks. If an enemy radar powered down to avoid being targeted, the missile could fly up to an altitude of 40,000 feet and deploy a parachute. The munition would then slowly descend, and if the enemy radar powered back up, it would release its parachute, re-acquire the target and … boom.

the rest HERE

retired at the end of 2013 and the next set of OOB's will reflect that

[FASTBOAT TOUGH]

So the RAF must have developed a "cloaking" device for their jets, "good show" I just hope they shared it with us because the F-35 sure can use it!

Regards,
Pat

[IronDuke99]

Re an Alarm 'replacement' these links give some info...

http://http://www.thinkdefence.co.uk...er-late-never/
http://http://ukarmedforcescommentar...n-hostile.html

Presumably something along these lines will be made available for Fleet Air Arm and RAF F35B's.

Remember, when talking about UK Defence cuts, that some of this is/was temporary, due to financial mess ups within UK MOD going back ten years or more. The 2015 Defence review actually was actually fairly good from the armed forces point of view. For example, UK 'gapped' long range maritime patrol aircraft, but have recently annouced the purchase of Boeing P8 Poseidon aircraft

[Warwick]

Links don't work. I think you've put 2 "http"s in each address.

Regards, Warwick

[Suhiir]

I know there are plans for an F-35 Ferret to replace the EA-6B that will almost certainly carry the AGM-88 HARM. To date I'm not entirely certain if it will be an F-35B or F-35C variant but probably a 'B'. Given that the Brits will be using the 'B' variant there's no reason they can't buy a few of the electronic warfare variant and some HARMs.

[IronDuke99]

Originally Posted by Warwick

Links don't work. I think you've put 2 "http"s in each address.

Regards, Warwick

I cannot get them to work: Relevant bit of first one is:

"Its seems that the Euro-fighter partner nations have finally got together and signed a development and integration contract for the AESA radar for the Typhoon.

Details are a little thin on the ground but its seems likely that the RAF will be the first force to take delivery of the Captor E Scan radar.

One of the key features of the Captor E scan radar is supposedly incorporation of the Electronic Attack Capability pioneered in the Bright Adder Radar.

A Typhoon carrying SPEAR 3 missiles with the Praetorian DASS and Captor E Scan should give the aircraft a fairly potent capability against enemy air defences and hopefully go some way to offset the capability gaps left with the retirement of the ALARM missile and Tornado.

With the deployment of Captor E along with the announcement this year of integration of Storm Shadow and Brimstone the Typhoon should be close to reaching its full potential as a strike aircraft. The next milestones in the program are likely to be conformal fuel tanks and thrust vectoring although these are likely to depend on the future export success of the aircraft.

While its good news it should have come five years ago and one has to wonder what damage has been done to the program and its export potential by penny pinching from our EU “partners”."

Think defence.co.uk

[MarkSheppard]

Minor OOB name change request; OBAT 011 Russia.

Unit 131 MiG-15 SD-5

[is equipped with 100 kg bombs]

Yefim Gordon's Aerofax MiG-15 book says on page 32:

MiG-15bis (izdeliye SD-5) development aircraft
In November 1952 another MiG-15bis was converted at plant No 21 in Gor'kiy. The aircraft had D3-40 shackles for carrying two FFAR pods, each with eight ORO-57 launcher tubes for ARS-57 FFARs. Firing was electrically controlled; AKS-2 gun cameras were fitted aft of the pods to record test launches. Designated izdeliye SD-5, the aircraft was tested but did not enter production.

Solution: Simply rename Unit 131 from "MiG-15 SD-5" to "MiG-15bis"

[MarkSheppard]

Russian 011 OBAT Date change request for IL-10/IL-10M:

Units:
126
127
937
938

Currently some of them last until either 12/1959 or 12/1964.

Apparently in 1956, the Soviets abolished attack "Sturmovik" aviation and retired the IL-10 en masse:

http://www.airwar.ru/enc/aww2/il10m.html

Google Translate reveals:

As of January 1, 1955 Soviet Army Air Force in its composition were 19 assault regiments, armed with 1700 consisted Il-10 and Il-10M and 130 jet fighter-bombers MiG-15bis.

In April 1956, Defense Minister Marshal Georgy Zhukov presented the leadership of the country prepared by the General Staff and the General Headquarters Air Force report on the state and prospects of development of attack aviation. The report concluded the low efficiency of storm troopers on the battlefield in modern warfare, and actually proposed to eliminate the attack aircraft, providing a solution to combat missions for close air support of ground troops in the offensive and defensive forces of bombers and fighter aircraft. As a result of discussion "at the top" order came from the Minister of Defence 20/04/56, according to which a part of the Air Force ground attack aircraft CA abolished available Il-10 and Il-10M written off "by Defense plan," aircrew partially retrained on MiG 15bis, and partly - transferred to fighter aircraft the Air Force and Air Defence. Along with the acceleration of assault by government decree aviation 04/13/56, it was stopped mass production of reactive armored attack aircraft IL-40 and stopped all development work on advanced aircraft-storming.

Suggestion:

Change Out of Service dates on IL-10/10M aircraft to 12/1956. This would represent some 'holdover' from the official order writing them off in April 1956 -- they're still there on the airfields, but no funding is authorized for them, until they're too far gone to bring back hurriedly.

[FASTBOAT TOUGH]

Just a quick "one and done" from JANE's & DID about my "favorite" jet...
http://www.janes.com/article/59027/s...ll-plague-f-35
https://www.defenseindustrydaily.com...program-07501/

The semi-news concerns Denmark's decision along with Canada to either cancel or postpone their F-35 involvement. Canada is to restart their fighter competition I believe this summer/or fall, the F-35 will be allowed to compete again for the contract. There is "chatter" from both about the new GRIPEN that's been equipped with an advanced AESA Radar that will maintain this fighter in the 4th GEN+ category of jets which is also still considered an exclusive club of less then a handful of fighters worldwide. Again the "+" being the distinction here.

Also the USAF is already looking for the replacement for both the F-22 and F-35. Lockheed Martin however, is pushing for incremental packaged updates for both. But McDonnell Douglas and Boeing see things differently, they'd love to have a shot again with a fighter of their own. I think some of us will be "real" old by then and therefore not an issue.

Regards,
Pat

[Suhiir]

I can sorta understand why the USAF isn't thrilled with the F-35 (for that matter CAS aircraft in general) after all everyone is going to use it someone might think we no longer need a separate Air Force!

But the F-22? While I take the hype concerning it with more then a few grains of salt all indications are it really is top notch air superiority aircraft. Besides just what the heck do they think a new airframe is going to provide? As Lockheed Martin said, upgrade the various systems if and as needed, no reason for a new airframe.