Terminator 2020; Why the F-4 Phantom is Still Turkey’s Fastest, Highest Flying and Most Heavily Arme

[Geaux4it]

I flew backseat F-4J's out of NAS Pt Mugu CA as an Air Combat Photographer. Many photo chase mission in that awesome bird. We used to smoke F/A-18's except if we were having to turn.

-Geaux

 

[DrainBamage]

The F-16. like the F-18 has only room enough for a 28 inch radar dish. The F-4 has a 36 inch dish. Physics comes into play here. If both use the same basic system, the larger dish gets the better reception which just about evens out the size differences of the airframes.

What matters is what size dish the ELTA-2032 on that F-4 has, and I seriously doubt you've done some back of napkin calculations on RCS differences to determine anything is evened out.

ELTA-2032 is NOT a high end radar system, it's solid but many of its customers have limited resources so are looking for something functional to put on A-4s, F-5, even MIG-21s. It's modern but small and cheap. The stated range for air-to-air is 80 miles, while an APG-68 (block 50/52 plus F-16s) is 168 miles. AESA radars like APG-80 (F-16 block 60) and APG-79 (Superbug) are far more expensive and more advanced with greater range, power, ability to track multiple targets, low probability intercept, more jam resistent, etc.

 

[DrainBamage]

Superbugs have room for only a 28 inch radar dish. The Israeli system is custom built for each country. In the case of Turkey for their F-4Es, they provide a bigger (36 in) disk which is more receptive than the 28 in that is used in both the F18 and the F-16.

Okay, what is the range of the F-4E's radar? Every resource I've seen states max range between 60-80 miles for ELTA 2032, it says as much on there on marketing brochure range up 80 miles. ELTA-2032 is also a 220 lb system, whereas an APG-79 AESA weighs 650 lbs, it's a far more powerful and higher performance radar.

 

[Daryl Hunt]

Superbugs have room for only a 28 inch radar dish. The Israeli system is custom built for each country. In the case of Turkey for their F-4Es, they provide a bigger (36 in) disk which is more receptive than the 28 in that is used in both the F18 and the F-16.

Okay, what is the range of the F-4E's radar? Every resource I've seen states max range between 60-80 miles for ELTA 2032, it says as much on there on marketing brochure range up 80 miles. ELTA-2032 is also a 220 lb system, whereas an APG-79 AESA weighs 650 lbs, it's a far more powerful and higher performance radar.

I think there is a mixup of systems. The System 2000 is mixed up with the 2020 system that isn't coming out until at least next year. The 2000 system was what you describe. And the 2000 spent most of it's money on ground attack. While it is a decent Air to Air, it's phenomenal as a air to ground. The Editors are using the 2000 info in the place of the 2020. There is NO information on the 2020 at this time other than it's coming out sometime around 2020 and the Israelis are going to spend more effort on Air to Air. And they still won't sell to Iran. You can rest assured that it will be state of the art though. Plus, it will be able to be used in many other platforms as well. But the F-4 has the largest Radome so it's going to see the most advantage from it.