Both works with AWACS but the radar sets are vastly different from each other in overall capability as they are different from the kit on the AWACS. The equipment in the F-14 stopped getting updated at some point. So obviously its radar is going to be behind the times.

Apparently the Iranians had a Russian based An-140 but they lost it to an accident a number of years ago. So right now they have none.

When was the last time the US updated their AWACS fleet?

The E-3G upgrade program is currently ongoing - IOC was hit in 2015.

Russian MiG-35D Loses Wing Panel During Flight Demo at MAKS 2019

X-posted from the military thread:

As a soldier, I saw part of this upgrade. The company that made the CRT's literally no longer exists (and the Germans bought up their stock!).

A move to more digital components saves almost a ton of weight between the ECS (fire control station) and the radar.

Edited by TairaMai on Sep 1st 2019 at 9:45:02 PM

This Is What Grumman's Proposed F-14 Super Tomcat 21 Would Have Actually Looked Like.

All these proposed upgrades and no GERWALK or BATTROID mode?

Say, is there any coherent reason for why the US Air Force frequently skips numbers in the naming of aircraft? In particular, they bizarrely jumped over 19 to 21 and 24 to 34.

Can anyone analyze the conclusion's claim that the hypothetical Super Tomcat would've probably been superior to the Super Hornet had it been realized?

It's just an F-14 with new bits in it, the Super Hornet is actually barely related to the original F-18 and just looks vaguely similar.

Important thing to remember about all the "superplanes" - they never flew despite being some old design with bits tacked on.

Due to the issues with the F-14 and the costs of either re-manufacture of old Tomcats or building new ones, I'm not surprised that the Navy just said "fuck it" and had the Super Hornet re-done from the wheels up.

They don't, the numbers that seem to be missing are test planes and prototypes that never really get bothered with, 23 is probably the most well known◊, and 32 is probably pretty up there in notability as well◊ or even the F-20◊, but the others existed at some point... we just may never know what they were.

Beyond what Garcon said about the Super Hornet having very little in common with the Hornet, there is also the fact that well.... The Tomcat was the A-10 of the last generation, the aircraft that every one loved and fawned over because of various reasons....

Soooo the article may have been written by some one on the older side, working with tinted glases.

Edited by Imca on Sep 9th 2019 at 1:06:52 AM

The other thing to remember is that much like the A-10 the Tomcat was really starting to show its age. Towards the end of its service life it was becoming more trouble than it was worth to keep around.

The X-31 looked a bit like a Typhoon with a single engine that used paddles for thrust vectoring. X-33 and 34 were space vehicles.

The X-32 is a divine child, too good for this sinful Earth.

Don’t forget about the F-117 and 111, so that means that there must be dozens of other prototype aircraft still classified.

The F-111 actually capped off the Century Series that started with the F-100; the F-103, 107, 108 and 109 were concepts or prototypes that never entered serial production, while the F-110 was renamed as the F-4. No idea what happened to 112 through 116, though.

Captured Aircraft.

YF-110 is the MiG-21, YF-112 is the Su-22, YF-113 is the MiG-23, YF-114 is the MiG-17. Conjecture puts the YF-115 designation on the Su-5, YF-116 on the MiG-25 and YF-118 on the MiG-29.

F-21 wasn't skipped either - it was the designation for IAI Kfirs used for DACT.

Edited by Deadbeatloser22 on Sep 9th 2019 at 4:28:12 PM

Why were they given YF designations? That's usually for prototypes isn't it?

Test planes and Protoypes.

Captured aircraft fall into the former.

The YF-112 etc. helped hide the F-117, the fact that the US had Soviet aircraft and pilots have to put something in their logbooks for the FAA.

Fun fact about the X-32, her in-house nickname at Boeing was "Monica".

Also, as you may have picked up on, the numbering system gets a bit screwy sometimes and it isn't always followed very well. The F/A in the F/A-18 Hornet isn't actually a strictly legal designation (IIRC, it should be FA-18 to show it is dual role). Then you get into some of the secret squirrel planes with assorted designation weirdness to throw off the scent.

It gets worse when you get into older aircraft that may have had one or more designations due to the whole system being overhauled in the 1960s. For a while the Air Force and the Army had similar but different designation conventions (and the Air Force one got notoriously weird, with stuff like missiles being designated as fighters or bombers), and the Navy just did their own thing (the aforementioned F-110 Spectre, later the F-4 Phantom, was known in US Navy service as the F 4 H, for reasons entirely unrelated to it being the F-4 under the new system (the F 4 H was a Fighter, being the 4th such design from the Mc Donnell Aircraft Corporation. Why Mc Donnell was designated as "H" is probably just a case of choosing a letter out of arbitrary bureaucratic pragmatism).

And then you have things like major redesigns that arguably should be whole new models (the F/A-18E Super Hornet has little in common with the F/A-18C Hornet beyond branding, for instance), or evolutionary updates pitched as whole new designs (the B-29D Superfortress was rebranded as he B-50A Superfortress, mostly just being the first Superfort to get out of Obvious Beta status).

Because McD originally had the "D" designation that Douglas was leaving vacant during the development of the FH-1, but before it went into production Douglas took it back for the Skyknight. "H" was presumably the next one available since Hall wasn't really making anything.

Perhaps, but consider that Vought had "U" and Grumman had "F". I think they had a hat that they picked letters out of.

USAF has restricted the KC-46 from carrying cargo and passenger due to cargo restraints unlocking mid-flight.

• facepalm*

On the bright side, it should be easily fixable with all the extra tools Boeing has been leaving inside the planes!

x-posed from the mil thread:

Poland Gets All-Clear to Buy US F-35 Joint Strike Fighters