GarryB wrote: Radomes are frequently opened for maintenance reasons. Not a good idea.
An AESA radar will not need maintainence for years, or so its proponents claim as modules fail the performance of the radar deteriorates but only by a very little amount performance wise so a cost saving is made by not bothering with maintanence and after a time period (measured in years) the faulty modules are replaced, rather than regular scheduled maintainence.
Another factor is that these rare gases could be incorporated as part of a transpiration cooling system so that the radome is a sealed module that can be looked at when the scheduled replacement of modules is due.
Or conversely the plasma gas could be contained in the hollow radom in front of the radar in a sealed unit that folds open to give access to the radar antenna.
Wrong...This is clearly spoken from a position of ignorance, particularly aviation maintenance. On any radar, peripheral components are usually the cause of maintenance issues before the antenna array itself.
For example...
http://www.chomerics.com/products/waveguide_gaskets.htm
For effective EMI shielding and pressure sealing for choke, cover and contact flanges, Chomerics' waveguide gaskets ensure low insertion, low flange leakage, maximum heat transfer and minimum outgassing. Chomerics provides conductive elastomer waveguide gaskets to fit standard UG, CPR, and CMR flanges. They can also be custom designed to meet special requirements.
http://events.nace.org/library/corrosion/cases/antenna.asp
Condensed moisture from humid air ingress was responsible for inducing corrosion within the aft radar antenna from an RAAF P-3C Orion maritime surveillance aircraft. Porosity in the silver-plating of a flexible brass waveguide allowed moisture to penetrate to the brass substrate and cause dezincification. The moisture also induced corrosion of some of the AA-6061 aluminum alloy waveguides. An investigation determined that moisture ingress occurred at a waveguide flange, possibly from the failure of a seal.
Waveguides are standard means of power transmission in radar systems and the seals between connections are quite often the cause of performance degradation. These and other peripherals must have periodic maintenance (PM) done to prevent the system from reaching that failure. The list is considerable. In peacetime, we have stricter maintenance requirements for obvious reason: war. In other words, should there be a time for war, we want to deploy with the best possible weapons systems and there is no other time to prepare for that potential than in peace. This is also applicable to flight controls, engines, environmental, structures, and electrical. In war, we do not have the luxury of preventative maintenance in all of those systems. In the USAF, we have gradations of aircraft status that we allow flight. Code One is when an aircraft is considered problems free. Code Two is when a system degradation does not impair overall aircraft flight capability. Code Three is when a problem is serious enough to cause loss of human life or asset destruction. In peacetime, we do not fly if there is a particular system degradation that will cause an aircraft to have Code Two status. But in war time, we will make that allowance. Code Three is obvious enough but most maintenance justifications from post flight debrief will be of Code Two category and sufficient to ground the aircraft from tomorrow's flight schedule.
I know you are desperate to salvage your argument but you are defying known practices and decades of experiences worldwide. Russia is not immune from 'the real world'.
GarryB wrote: Look at it this way...You can have all body shaping, all RAM, or all 'plasma stealth'.
Look at it this way, any technique at a measure results in an equivelent countermeasure... if yo put all your eggs in the shaping basket what happens with improved
long wave AESA radars that are not effected by shape?
Wrong...
ALL freqs are affected by target body shapes and dimensions. The issue is the degree of target resolutions.
GarryB wrote:Or electronic techniques that might render RAM ineffective? Or indeed methods that might make plasma stealth counter productive?
Do you even know basic radar detection principles to make these statements? I doubt it.
GarryB wrote:Developing and using as many types of stealth as you can and applying them to their strengths and to counter the weaknesses of other methods simply makes sense.
In principle...Yes. But in reality, complex systems have greater system failures, not just in frequency but also in severity. An aircraft that is capable of deploying complex countermeasures against radar detection but require financially excessive manhours and manpower to maintain is just as bad as having nothing at all.
GarryB wrote:A good example is the western use of towed decoys. That is great because chaff slows down too fast and is rejected because it travels too slow. Another solution however is a 30mm or 23mm cannon shell where the shell has an external surface covered in corner reflectors so instead of having a tiny RCS its RCS is actually rather large and its aerodynamic shape and weight means it retains speed well, though its ballistic dive could be a problem unless the aircraft firing the shell dives too.
Same problem, different solution... it is the superiority complex of the west that thinks its way is right.
For IR guided missiles there is a flare shell and in the case of the Tu-22M3 the gun firing the shells can "deploy" 50 flares a second mixed with "chaff" shells. Simple to reload and maintain.
You have a gross misunderstanding of chaff and how it works. If the radar view is overwhelmed with chaff, it does not matter the chaff bloom's velocity. The West cannot alter the laws of physics. It is too bad for the rest that we know how to exploit those laws better than others can.
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