PAK-FA, T-50: News #2

Austin wrote:The Limits of Stealth

Austin wrote:The Limits of Stealth

Complex "Khibiny" continues to improve

- How well do we imagine the possibilities of modern Western radar and guidance systems?

- We work in advance. We are required to predict the development of systems with "the other side", to build on this all their work. Acting on the program in 2025, we need to know how the enemy may be in the 2030 m. There are various methods of forecasting and developing its advanced systems, we model as an opponent is the possibility of conditional 2030. Of course, there remains some uncertainty, and we lay in our complexes the excess capacity that can fend off this uncertainty.

Opportunities verified in practice. We are creating a system, check them, are working, take into account the error, recreate, etc. And the operation is very important for us both in Russia and abroad, in places where we deliver our equipment because the conditions are very different: the geographical, and the potential enemy.

This is the only reliable guarantee, we constantly check in practice, how it works.

- What are the key parameters for EW today?

- We have moved to digital methods of processing and signal generation. Thanks to the miniaturization of the system can be done, covering the whole operating range of communication and radar systems - previously had to produce specialized systems for each range.

In addition, there was the concept of non-energy interference. Modern means of detection and treatment allow an accurate representation of signals. And we can form their similar signal by changing the parameters that we need, for example in its structure. Now, do not necessarily apply forceful suppression, noise close full screen. Sometimes it is easier to get a signal, disassemble it, change something and come back.

- What is the role of EW systems in an increasingly "digitalization" battle management?

- Each control system - a defined set of relations. Our task, the task of EW - find these links, some break off in some, not interrupting, slip distorted information. Figuratively it can be compared to tossing a coin to the cashier accountant, who will have all night to count to find out what was going on.

Although the problem is. How to identify the most important goal, not to spend the extra resources? I'm getting a signal flow between different objects, and we have of these objects to select those that are most important to me - it does not matter whether it is about detection, control, communications, etc. Our methods allow it, and while "on the side" improve controls, we are improving electronic warfare.

- How EW equipment can compensate for the lag in the development of control and communication systems, or, for example, in firepower?

- The effectiveness of the control we consider through a conflict between the two systems. The task for each hand - the destruction of the opposing factions, the strength of which is largely determined by the control system. We should focus on those tools that will allow us to quickly locate and identify the target, faster to sight and will destroy it.

And if the enemy, say, a good intelligence system, with its high range, then our task - to reduce this distance to the point in time to first. If the opponent is better system to disseminate information, then we must act on it so that it was late, and we again would be the first. EW allows us to solve such problems.

We have made good progress and the number of concurrent trends impact and level algorithms. Otherwise, it is impossible. We have to learn to counteract the development of the system of management and communication, to create tools that can compensate for the success of the opponents. As fate makes us do the appropriate level of complexes.

I am sure that in the conceptual design, to concepts and ideas we come, on the implementation - where as, but in a number of complexes, and aviation, and land category, ranks fairly high. This is confirmed by including a foreign operation. Customers often use our system against the objects about which we knew nothing, and the results are very good.

- How is the process of developing complex electronic warfare?

- It is a continuous process, with a constant exchange of information - from the Academy of Sciences applied to structures in different directions. The basis of everything - Forecasting and testing. Stop the process impossible. Crucial feedback from the Ministry of Defence: we provide the technical basis for ensuring that it is no worse than your opponent, but the complex is operated by specific people, and we need to understand how they cope with it. Often fighting officers impose such a requirement: proper complex needs only one button - on / off. Well, we're trying to do it. Finally, often operating experience allows you to expand the boundaries of opportunities inherent in the design.

If we talk about your opponents, of course, it's not just the United States. Britain, France, Italy, Israel ... Everyone has their strengths. Israel, for example, is developing a great suppression of homing of different types - radar, infrared, combined ...

The United States to create a complex group protection by suppressing means AEW opponent. Market is sufficiently developed, competitive, but we do have their advantages. We were able to create an integrated structure - KRET, a center of competence in the development of electronic warfare, combining the company at all levels. We have excellent manufacturers of parts and assemblies, excellent designers.

A very important step for us was to acquire "Aviapribor holding", the largest manufacturer of aircraft avionics. This allowed us to greatly improve our modular system: aviapriborostroiteli actively apply these technologies in their work - we are in his. Association with "Aviapribor" much easier for us to work, including the accessories - ultimately we are using largely similar sets of parts, just differently-assembled for different tasks.

- What can you say about the system EW "Khibiny", which is set, in particular, the Su-34, as well as electronic warfare systems, complex T-50?

- "Khibiny" - a serial system designed to protect aircraft from the group SAM. But he continues to improve, including through miniaturization. Staying in the same size, with the same mass and energy parameters, the complex can get a lot more opportunities.

Another aspect: moving to a new generation of electronics, we reduce the weight and size, making it easy to plane. We must understand that there is no electronic warfare itself. If a perspective plane differs markedly reduced, it is possible to implement a range of reduced energy potential that opens up broad prospects for further improvement. This also applies to the T-50. The new generation of solid-state electronics, reduction of weight, dimensions, more compact on the plane ... Although general solutions are not so many, for each specific type of aircraft being developed something of their own, subject to the limitations on weight and dimensions, the thermal regime. Take a complex with the same type of aircraft and put on the other will not work. The problem is solved anew each time.

Published online Rosteha

2SPOOKY4U wrote:I found something that was shown at MAKS 2009(roughly) however I do not know the name of such system, maybe this will be integrated onto the T-50 to provide a solid defense against SARH/ARH missiles like the DIIRCM system defends against IR missiles.

GarryB wrote:As its radars improve in resolution for ground mapping the need for IIR becomes less, but it is still useful.

Having pods means it is cheaper... if you have 200 planes you don't need 200 pods.

Also pods are easier to upgrade and update and can be handed down to other aircraft when they become obsolete.

Pods can also be mounted facing forward or backward... offering a flexibility internal systems can't offer... it also frees up internal space for other things.

ACC’s Gen. Hostage: On Fifth Gen Combat Cloud And Syria
By Robbin Laird and Ed Timperlake
on October 22, 2014 at 4:29 AM

Robbin Laird, a member of our Board of Contributors, and Ed Timperlake conducted what looks like it will be the last interview with Gen. Mike Hostage, the head of Air Combat Command, before he retires in early November. Hostage has overseen the Air Force’s transition to fifth generation aircraft with the introduction of the F-22 and preparations for introduction of the F-35 fleet. Read on. The Editor.

Question: The F-22s have seen their first combat mission flying against ISIL in the Middle East. They could have been used before but have not. We have been asked by a number of analysts and journalists, was the F-22 operating as a separate asset or was it integrated with the force?

Hostage: Any platform that we operate today is integrated with the force. We don’t operate very many single mission combat aircraft, other than maybe close air support. Even that today is a highly orchestrated affair.

I think it is kind of ludicrous for someone to think that we have a platform that doesn’t integrate with anything else. Clearly, on a machine-to-machine basis, the F-22s can not communicate with everybody else at the level they communicate with each other.

But in terms of integrating the platform with other assets, that was ongoing from day one. This is largely true in terms of TTP or tactics, techniques and procedures.

With regard to the current operation (against ISIL), they were part of a force package. It wasn’t like they were operating alone and by themselves, without anything else. They were part of the force package. They had a role to fill in that force mix.

They had targets to hit, but they had other roles before delivering airstrikes. Clearly, their level of situational awareness, and their ability to protect the fleet was a significant part of their mission set but they had targets just like everybody else.

I don’t see how you can be any more integrated than that.

Question: Airpower has become more important over time in terms of the range of missions, which it can conduct or enable. Yet there continues to be a public debate, which posits boots on the ground versus airpower. We see airpower as both a shaper of the battlespace and a key enabler of a variety of other operations.

How do you see it?

Hostage: The boots on the ground debate is a political, not a military debate. Nobody argues that putting boots on the ground will not give you better fidelity, better opportunities to identify the good guys and the bad guys, and put weapons on the forehead of the correct bad guy.

But it’s not a military decision whether to do that or not, it’s a political decision. I think it’s a legitimate political consideration that our national leadership deals with. They choose whatever path they choose, you could like or dislike it, but it’s not a military choice, it’s a political choice.

We have significant and intensive ISR in the fight and am not sure it could get much more intense than we have, other than just putting more aircraft up there.

But there’s a limit to what you can do from the air just because of range and the fidelity of your sensors. You can’t see through buildings. You can’t hear whispered conversations. There’s clearly a limit to what airborne ISR can produce.

It’s pretty spectacular what it can do, and we’re doing some pretty quality work up there as we speak. We’re doing everything we can do to maximize our effect within the context in which we are operating.

If you compare the current situation with what we have done in Afghanistan one can see a difference. In Afghanistan, we have been able to work with the rebuilt Afghan forces, the Afghan police and US and coalition forces on the ground. We overlaid that with a very intensive ISR blanket of a variety of different platforms, electronic and FMV (full motion video). We cannot do the same in the current Iraqi situation, but the Iraqi forces are in disarray.

We’re doing what we can do given the constraints of the situation.

Question: As you come to the end of tenure at ACC, what do you look back on as your key achievement?

Hostage: Well, I’m proudest that I have an F-22 fleet that is the most capable combat platform on the battlefield. Clearly using it in Syria is not necessarily the most stringent or rigorous test. But the fact it did exactly what we needed it to do, it was flawless in what it did.

It vindicated all the effort of getting it back on track, you know, when I took over the platform that had been grounded for six months. The pilots were afraid to fly it; the maintainers were afraid to fix it. I mean, it was in a shambles. We were at risk of losing our crown jewel.

We have just about completed putting the 3.1 software into the plane, which gives it a very, very significant air-to-ground capability in an Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) environment.

And it is a game changer for us.

I wish I had the numbers we should’ve had. But even 184, it is an absolutely compelling force. And I’m very happy as well with the technical capability that the F-35 has today, and that it promises to have in the future. As long as we don’t fail to deliver the right numbers of aircraft, that’s going to be an equally compelling capability when we deploy that fleet of 1,763 airplanes.

Question: The last time we met, we learned that you had become the first ACC Commander to actually fly the F-22. We were impressed. From your perspective, how will the challenge of working the F-22s and the F-35s be worked with the legacy fleet?

Hostage: You mean the re-norming air operations, if I were to steal a term? Well, I was fortunate to fly the airplane; I learned what I didn’t know.

I was writing war plans in my previous job as a three star using the F-22s in a manner that was not going to get the most out of them that I could’ve because I didn’t truly understand the radical difference that the fifth gen could bring.

People focus on stealth as the determining factor or delineator of the fifth generation. It isn’t; it’s fusion. Fusion is what makes that platform so fundamentally different than anything else. And that’s why if anybody tries to tell you hey, I got a 4.5 airplane, a 4.8 airplane, don’t believe them. All that they’re talking about is RCS (Radar Cross Section).

Fusion is the fundamental delineator. And you’re not going to put fusion into a fourth gen airplane because their avionic suites are not set up to be a fused platform. And fusion changes how you use the platform.

What I figured out is I would tell my Raptors, I don’t want a single airplane firing a single piece of ordinance until every other fourth-gen airplane is Winchester. Because the SA (situational awareness) right now that the fifth gen has is such a leveraging capability that I want my tactics set up to where my fourth gen expend their ordinance using the SA that the fifth gen provides, the fifth gen could then mop up, and then protect everybody coming in the next wave. It’s radically changing how we fight on the battlefield.

We are fundamentally changing the tactical battlefield. How a tactical platform operates with the fusion of fifth gen. What the aviators do is fundamentally different in a fifth gen platform versus fourth gen in the tactical fight.

From an operational standpoint, there are some changes because there are now some things that we can do with fifth gen that I might not have been able to do before.

But the fundamental mechanism of producing air superiority, to enable ground operations, to enable deep strike, to enable all these other things; those fundamental things, those tasks are the same.

I have got the command embarked on a full-court press to get a fourth-to-fifth, fifth-to-fourth capability that will need a combat cloud to be fully empowered, but it will then allow us to fundamentally change how the fourth generation platforms fight in addition to the fifth gen.

Without that back and forth communication, machine-to-machine, the fourth gen’s going to have to do what they already do, they’ll just leverage some of the capability that fifth gen — the SA the fifth gen can provide.

If I can get that machine-to-machine, now the fourth-gen platform will begin to realize some of the benefits inherently at the tactical level that the fusion engines of the fifth generation aircraft provide.

Question: It has been pointed out by analysts such as the former chief scientist of the Air Force, Mark Lewis, that the weapons revolution to exploit the full capabilities of fifth generation aircraft needs to be unleashed. How do you view the evolution of weapons working with the fleet, and where we need to go in that domain?

Hostage: I don’t think we’re necessarily producing fifth generation weapons in addition to our fifth generation platforms. But I would say it’s more in that sequential linear fashion than leaping ahead.

In the end, it’s the effect you want to achieve; the platforms that we have now coupled with the linear growth of the weapons capability are giving us the ability to produce the effects we need to produce.

As we start to deal with an intense anti-access and area-denial environment, the need to do deep strikes into an area that is just totally denied, that’s going to cause us to stretch our level of effort to develop weapons that are truly new and game changing.

Question: One of the concepts we’ve played with is what we called the S Cubed, which is the tradeoffs between sensors, stealth, and speed. And how you played them off against one another. Does that make sense?

Hostage: It does. I think an excellent portrayal of the value of looking at the interaction of those parameters is to examine Raptor versus the Lightning. A Raptor at 50-plus thousand feet at Mach 2 with its RCS has a different level of invulnerability than a Lightning at 35,000 at Mach .9 and it’s RCS.

The altitude, speed, and stealth combined in the two platforms, they give the airplanes two completely different levels of capability. The plan is to normalize the Lightning’s capability relative to the Raptor by marrying it up with six, or seven or eight other Lightnings.

The advanced fusion of the F-35 versus the F-22 means those airplanes have an equal level or better level of invulnerability than the Raptors have, but it takes multiple airplanes to do it because of the synergistic fused attacks of their weapon systems.

That’s the magic of the fifth-gen F-35, but it takes numbers of F-35s to get that effect. That’s why I’ve been so strident on getting the full buy. Because if they whittle it down to a little tiny fleet like the Raptor, it’s not going to be compelling.

Question: The allies and partners from this standpoint are key enablers of a global F-35 fleet. And another key aspect of what you are talking about is changing the concepts of operations of airpower with the fifth generation, and to build and to design to a 21st century battlefield, not the battlefield that we had 30 years ago. For example, (former Air Force Secretary) Mike Wynne talks about fifth gen performing a function as scouts, much like you were describing using their SA to enable the other strike aircraft.

Hostage: Absolutely. But again, in order to have those forward scouts picking up targets, and then having fourth gens and standoff hit it, you got to have that combat cloud, that ability to move the data back and forth, and that is why we’re working so hard on that effort.

It is also important to rework how we do C2 (command and control). What happens in Afghanistan happens now because the CAOC operates 1,500 miles away and is able to orchestrate, integrate, and get the synergies of the different platforms out there to achieve the effects that they achieve in an uncontested battlefield.

You start to deal with airspace over Syria, airspace in the Straits of Taiwan or something where you’re significantly challenged; they’re going to go after that link if you’re relying on long-range prompts from a centralized command-and-control element.

The concept of having distributed control out there utilizing the cloud that’s populated by your fleet in place, but then the ability to continue to orchestrate is what we are after. We’re not talking about platforms that operate by themselves to execute a mission, we’re talking about air platforms that operate in synergy with others to achieve the effect, and to survive the adversary.

If you’re going to operate with other platforms and operate in synchronization, you’ve got to have a synchronizer, that’s the distributed control element. That could be a BMC2 (Battle Management, Command and Control) platform, like a JSTARS, it could be an AWACS, it could be an E2C, it could be a wing command post, it could be a ship at sea, it could be a variety of different things operating to help provide that forward distributed control capability to organize airpower in a forward battlefield and a contested battlefield.

Question: The US has had air superiority within which airpower can shift to other roles enabling sea and ground forces. This ubiquities of airpower tends to be assumed and also forgotten. How do you see this challenge?

Hostage: Air operates way up there where nobody can see it, and I have told my Army brothers that, for 60 years now, they have never worried about the sound of noise overhead. You never look up, you don’t have to; you know it’s us. You can’t always assume that’s going to be the case. That has been the case for 60 years because we have made sure that it was so.

If we don’t, the battlefield changes dramatically. The guys on the ground are going to have to start looking over their shoulders, and wondering if that noise is going to beat on them or not.

Question: One of the changes in front of us is the almost certain return of air-to-air combat. We recently published an interview with Chuck Debellevue to remind folks of what is entailed in such combat, including dealing with the threat from the ground to air insertion forces. How prepared are we for this transition from air to ground to air to air?

Hostage: What we’re asking a young lieutenant to do in her first two or three years as a fighter pilot is so far beyond what they asked me to do in my first two to three years, it’s almost embarrassing.

The things we require of her, the things she has to be able to do, the complexity of the system that she operates are so much more taxing, and yet, they make it look easy. They’re really, really good.

I have no question that they’re going to triumph when it finally happens. I really think the Shock and Awe will be back the day that we clash with somebody in the air because our systems, and our airmen are so capable, I think they’re going to do really well.

I watch what we do at our U.S.-only Red Flags, and it is frighteningly capable. So I’m very confident. I have no doubt that they’ll triumph, if we can keep from crushing the defense mechanism that supports them with our current fiscal path.

Question: How important is the ready room and the pilot’s learning culture to the evolution of airpower, notably with the new airplanes coming on line?

Hostage: Any time you put your magic piece of hardware in the hands of a young lieutenant, they’re going to figure out something new that you never thought of. And they’ll use it in ways that you never considered. And ultimately, we’ll rewrite the tactical manuals.

But that’s expected.

You want it to be a disciplined process, which is why we look for them out there at the squadron level to come up with ideas, but we do a very disciplined weapons and tactics review every year where we have the weapons officers from every tactical squadron show up at Nellis for two weeks. We have them hammer out every new thing that the people thought of, but all the experts feed on it, and pull it six ways to Sunday.

If it survives that test, then we document it, and we write it down, and we start training everybody how to do these things.

That’s how we propagate these great ideas across the force.

Because you’re right, the engine is out there in the mind of the lieutenant who has just figured out something new to do with their fancy piece of machinery drives change.

Mike E wrote:Can't say I'm all that surprised... Any general with half a brain knows that avionics and SA capabilities etc are more important aspects of an aircraft than their stealth design. When talking about SA, he appeared to say that fourth-gen aircraft and their variants (upgraded ones) would use SA to their advantage, which confuses me... - Was he talking about fourth gen designs getting upgraded SA abilities, or just how they can benefit from fifth gen aircraft with superior SA capabilities around them ?

Basically, he makes it seem like the only real upgrade fifth gen aircraft have over their older models is  superior avionics and SA, both of which can be implemented on older designs.... The F-22 has an amazingly weak processing unit when it comes to raw power in computing, 4++ designs like the SU-35 and MiG-35 should be superior in that aspect...

tempestii wrote:My understanding of his statement is the 4th gen get SA input from the 5th gen. He gives Taiwan straights and Syria as an examples where F-22 SA can be used in place of AWACS

sepheronx wrote:

Mike E wrote:Can't say I'm all that surprised... Any general with half a brain knows that avionics and SA capabilities etc are more important aspects of an aircraft than their stealth design. When talking about SA, he appeared to say that fourth-gen aircraft and their variants (upgraded ones) would use SA to their advantage, which confuses me... - Was he talking about fourth gen designs getting upgraded SA abilities, or just how they can benefit from fifth gen aircraft with superior SA capabilities around them ?

Basically, he makes it seem like the only real upgrade fifth gen aircraft have over their older models is  superior avionics and SA, both of which can be implemented on older designs.... The F-22 has an amazingly weak processing unit when it comes to raw power in computing, 4++ designs like the SU-35 and MiG-35 should be superior in that aspect...

yes and no.

Computing power on aircrafts are a whole different ball game compared to anything else.  The Intel i960 used is using DSP cores to do a lot of the technical work for encoding/decoding.  And even though it is slow and old processor, in that field, it would outdo a Core i7 extreme whatever.  Hence why the government uses this processor.  Actually, India uses it for their BAR's radar on the Su-30MKI because the Russian's wasn't selling an export variant of theirs.  Same goes for the MCST Elbrus 2C+.  May not seem like a phenomenal processor, but with its DSP cores, makes it a monster in that position.

A lot of that technology can be put into the older aircrafts as well though, making them very effective.  I agree.  PAK FA development is aimed at lowering the Radar cross section but still being more important in other fields, while F-35 and F-22 are aimed at more stealth.

sepheronx wrote:Meh, if the processor works, stick with it.  The other aspect is that the Intel processor, much like the Elbrus one, has been tested for extreme conditions of electromagetnic pulses to prevent major damages to it (either that or go back to vaccum tubes for everything) and has been in production for a lot longer (MCST one is actually quite new), thus making it a lot cheaper than another one that could be faster, but provides no added benefit.  Same processor is being used for F-35 as well.

It goes back to the old question: Would one computer to power all on an aircraft be better/cheaper than multiple computers for various gadgets in an aircraft?  In this case, I would the latter be better since if the computer fails, it wont take everything with it.  For radar translations are done so fast, milliseconds, that a new processor, regardless of it being faster, won't add any benefit at all.  Only thing it could add is that the processor would be more powerful enough to run multiple tasks at once compared to the old one.  But if it fails (which actually, smaller transistor processors have higher failure rates compared to the older 180nm tech), it would take a lot with it.

I asked my father this same question a few years ago, since he worked for Sperry and IBM (when working on processors and other IC for military and civil tech) and his statement is that even though the new may be faster, it is in a lot of cases more prone to failures as well as provides little to no need of tech.  Hence why they went with a lot of slower, older MIPS and RISC processors over the more advanced CISC processors at the time.

Funny thing he told me, is that in the military, they have a huge backup of analog systems, old coil wrappings for memory, vacuum tubes and what not, for "just in case".

Mike E wrote:

sepheronx wrote:Meh, if the processor works, stick with it.  The other aspect is that the Intel processor, much like the Elbrus one, has been tested for extreme conditions of electromagetnic pulses to prevent major damages to it (either that or go back to vaccum tubes for everything) and has been in production for a lot longer (MCST one is actually quite new), thus making it a lot cheaper than another one that could be faster, but provides no added benefit.  Same processor is being used for F-35 as well.

It goes back to the old question: Would one computer to power all on an aircraft be better/cheaper than multiple computers for various gadgets in an aircraft?  In this case, I would the latter be better since if the computer fails, it wont take everything with it.  For radar translations are done so fast, milliseconds, that a new processor, regardless of it being faster, won't add any benefit at all.  Only thing it could add is that the processor would be more powerful enough to run multiple tasks at once compared to the old one.  But if it fails (which actually, smaller transistor processors have higher failure rates compared to the older 180nm tech), it would take a lot with it.

I asked my father this same question a few years ago, since he worked for Sperry and IBM (when working on processors and other IC for military and civil tech) and his statement is that even though the new may be faster, it is in a lot of cases more prone to failures as well as provides little to no need of tech.  Hence why they went with a lot of slower, older MIPS and RISC processors over the more advanced CISC processors at the time.

Funny thing he told me, is that in the military, they have a huge backup of analog systems, old coil wrappings for memory, vacuum tubes and what not, for "just in case".

It cannot be that hard to build a replacement... Like I said, it doesn't have to be a "miracle processor". All it has to do, is improve the architecture etc and keep the optimized DSP design. An improved model could handle the same conditions, and EMP-resistance isn't a major challenge. My question to you, is why compromise? - I swore the F-35 used a newer chip, after all ,they wanted to upgrade the F-22's chip....

I agree with that... There should be multiple processing units and not just one, I never suggested otherwise... The ability to process information quicker, and multitask better (like you said), is very much an upgrade. More so when the radar systems themselves are getting more and more complicated. AESA radars always have hundreds of independent emitters/receivers, what is going to happen when they have thousands if not tens or even hundreds of thousands? That much information could overwhelm an older chip like that, especially if trying to resist jamming etc (switching bands etc). 

I should ask my father a similar question... He worked in both the hardware and software divisions of defense contractors for many years, and thankfully he continues to retain that knowledge. The chance of failure isn't much higher, if not lower... The advanced nature has less to do with reliability than production facilities and stable software and architectures etc. A die shrink + whatever else they'd do wouldn't destroy the chip....

For good reason....