Airplane Jammers!

Forget missles use high powered lasers.

if it existed!


ok so if you only use it for 2min or something, it is likely NOT to fail you in that small amound of time!!

A lot of things can go wrong with any jamming system mounted on any tactical aircraft.

I disaggree with Qwas when he says TWT's are the weak link in a jamming system. I joined the Air Force in '82 as an Electronic Warfare Systems Tech, Was even station in extreme souhtern Georgia where your from Qwas and can tell you first hand that TWT's fail alot less then many other parts.

Things break, its a fact of life. and more so on Tactical AC then others. High G's are the culprit mostly, it cause cable to break which is one of the most common reasons for a system to malfunction on a fighter. Also High G manuvers cause the solder joints to break on hardlines (another very common problem.) I can honestly say i changed out many more power supplies/hardlines/cables/circuit cards then TWT's. Hell, it's even more like some new troop fresh from Tech School over tightened the retainer on one of the card racks to the point of almost pulling a card out of its slot and the first hard turn the AC made did the rest. As for a 20 hr MTBF on a transmit tube thats 20hrs of transmit time, not time spent in standby while its waiting to do its job.

Now as to how we get the info to make ECM gear work. It's real easy, we fly AC against real world threats just to get them to paint the AC with the weapons system radar, that information is recorded and analyzed and a threat package is developed to counteract that particular system.

Garaman Rex

Originally posted by Garaman Rex
A lot of things can go wrong with any jamming system mounted on any tactical aircraft.

Thanks PeanutButterJellyTime and Garaman.
This thread was sounding like once ECM was installed, it would never break. I wanted them to understand differently.

In the Air Force (1976-1980) I was in Avionics Comm/Nav. I've worked on F-4 fighters and seen their radar in operation, never heard it though. I've also worked on B-52 and have seen the ECM screen lit up. I haven't worked on the ECM boxes so I can't talk from experience like Garaman but I know they break frequently.

Glad to see Garaman join in on this thread.

TWT technology is slowly becoming obsolete.

Most modern high-power tactical RF radiators use Solid-State Microwave Amplifiers (SSMA) versus TWTA's, anyways, for reliability factors.

See this paper: SSMA Reliability versus TWTAs

Originally posted by 187onu

Forget missles use high powered lasers.

if it existed!


ok so if you only use it for 2min or something, it is likely NOT to fail you in that small amound of time!!

Exactly. Here's one use www.exn.ca...

But, like the site says, it wouldn't be 'practical' to use as anti-aircraft defense because lasers behave different with atmospheric conditions.

LOL i like this quote "It's multi-megawatt," confides Rich Garcia, information officer at the Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico, where the program resides. "We can't say how many megawatts, that's classified, but it's intended to destroy theatre ballistic missiles from more than 200 nautical miles (370 kilometres) away."

Destroying missles from 360 Km away, but the watts are classified, therefore the real distance is probably classified as well.

www.boeing.com...

you know, thats all great, WE've got jammers THEY JUST BREAK DOWN LIKE CRAZY, Im sure the militairy is very pleased with this!!!!

Originally posted by 187onu
you know, thats all great, WE've got jammers THEY JUST BREAK DOWN LIKE CRAZY, Im sure the militairy is very pleased with this!!!!

I take it you have no idea of the complexities involved with this. It is very hard to make wide band receivers and wide band transmitters work. And then they have to detect complex waveforms designed to avoid detection. And, at the same time, avoid jamming your own aircraft avionics. I bet you think they can condense this down to the size of your cell phone.

What we are describing is the real world. Not all electronics are as simple as your TV receiver, radio, or computer. Perhaps you need to get away from your SciFi world for a while. Only then will you begin to understand what fighter aircraft are all about. MTBF is real and every fight pilot thinks it when flying. The F-4 had a radar system with a MTBF shorter than his flight. You don't think that was on the pilot's and WSO's mind constantly???

Your beginning post sounded like you wanted some real info on ECM. Evidently you don't. You want to dream about F-117s being shot down in perfect condition and laser weapons that are many years away from deployed on fighter aircraft. You want to look at a bunch of specifications and determine who will win without caring about anything else.

No, I do want to know real life -whatever you called it-, its just that I have know way of finding them out without you poeple, so I assume that things work -it would be logical for things to work right won't they-, and searching google Ill only find things I have know idea what Im looking at (ectually it will show you speed jammers) nor what to type, but here we are, getting the answeres I wanted...
Im not a pilot, are you?

How the hell was I suppose to figure out that they could fail that easily??

but please go on...

and next time DONT tell what I want !!!

Well 187onu, look at it like this, they do work, at least far more often then they don't. As proof I offer this, any time a pilot flys into a war zone and makes it back home you can bet your last buck it was probably because his ECM gear was in proper working order. Weapons systems today are to good to think your gonna out fly them without help (a major gripe of mine about every war movie ever made that has Air Combat in it.) If you can't make that incomming missle or AAA think your someplace else by jamming it or giving it something else to chase using chaff or flares then your a dead man. We hardly lose any planes so either our stuff works or their stuff doesn't, either way we win.

Garaman Rex

Oh, Qwas, my first duty station was Moody AFB and my first system was the AN-ALQ 119 and the RWR system on F-4's I loved those planes, but I guess you always love your first...

THANK YOU, see this is what I mean, THEY MUST WORK, otherwise what is the point of having them/building them?

heres some links

www.aeronautics.ru...

www.portal.telegraph.co.uk.../news/2002/01/06/wafg206.xml&sSheet=/news/2002/01/06/ixnewstop.html

www.theregister.co.uk...

Something jumped to mind, if the AWACs is SO danm well protected with a fighter curtian then how come 2 migs fly in and highjack it???

isn't that wierd due to its protection???

Here's a basic overview of missile countermeasure systems that may be useful to you.

www.aerospaceweb.org...

thanks man...! very usefull!