N-001 Radar and SPO-15 service

[SgtPappy]

I know I shouldn't read wiki too much, but I couldn't help but question the fact that it says the Su-27 was in service since 1986 but its radar, the N-001, was not "accepted into service" until 1991. What the heck does this mean? Was the Su-27 flying without a radar until 1991?

 

By that time the Cold War was essentially over and the AIM-120A had entered service.

 

Also, concerning the OLS-15 system... I keep reading on how all these avionics (Russian/USSR and US alike) have some bugs in RL. What exactly is so disadvantageous about an SPO-15 that gives Russian pilots less situational awareness than the TEWS on an F-15 in RL?

 

I understand that glitches like an F-15 picking up its own emissions or bugs in a USSR-era SPO might not be easily modeled, but these questions are for the sake of learning rather than questioning the game.

[GGTharos]

I know I shouldn't read wiki too much, but I couldn't help but question the fact that it says the Su-27 was in service since 1986 but its radar, the N-001, was not "accepted into service" until 1991. What the heck does this mean? Was the Su-27 flying without a radar until 1991?

 

It means they continued to field the radar program - ie. they kept working on it. This may imply that Su-27's constantly went through radar upgrades, or just a few larger upgrades. The F-15C constantly goes through radar upgrades. There's several every year, AFAIK.

 

Also, concerning the OLS-15 system... I keep reading on how all these avionics (Russian/USSR and US alike) have some bugs in RL. What exactly is so disadvantageous about an SPO-15 that gives Russian pilots less situational awareness than the TEWS on an F-15 in RL?

 

Did you notice for example that angular precision is quite crappy? Makes notching by instrument (if you need to do it that way) much harder.

It also doesn't really tell you the type of enemy (it tries, but you have to combine what the lamp is telling you with intel that you have, and even that may not be good enough at times), and is very limited when it comes to displaying secondary threats. It can be very easily saturated by potentially irrelevant (to your situation) emmiters. You don't see this in games because they're quite sterile when it comes to emmiters.

 

I understand that glitches like an F-15 picking up its own emissions or bugs in a USSR-era SPO might not be easily modeled, but these questions are for the sake of learning rather than questioning the game.

 

Most RWRs are linked with their radar, so that they will blank out reception while the radar is transmitting to avoid picking up 'self'. Same for ECM - all these devices try to not interfere with each other, but sometimes this doesn't work.

 

There can also be issues with signal identification, etc etc etc. That's just trouble caused by things you can easily speculate on, there's likely much more to it.

[SgtPappy]

I suppose by "saturation" you mean just random signals of X-band frequency being detected right?

 

As cool as the SPO looks, I don't think anything beats the TEWS... it tells you if a friendly is tracking you while there doesn't seem to be the same thing for the SPO. I suppose the Soviets didn't find such a feature important.

 

In regards to the Su-27's radar, according to the Sukhoi website: "The testing of the Su-27 under a variety of programmes continued for several years longer. The Su-27 was officially put into service by a decree of the government of 23rd August 1990 after all the major faults identified during the tests had been remedied. By that time, Su-27 had been in service for 5 years."

 

This sounds contradictory because it says the government recognized it in service in 1990, yet it "had been in service" for 5 years? Perhaps IOC = 1986 and FOC = 1990?

 

But it appears you are right, GG. They must've kept working on the radar. The difference between the N001 and the APG-63 in this case is that the APG-63 was good already and it seems to me that the N001 was just not up to spec until Aug., 1990.

[GGTharos]

I suppose by "saturation" you mean just random signals of X-band frequency being detected right?

 

I wouldn't say random, and they don't need to be X-band, either :)

 

As cool as the SPO looks, I don't think anything beats the TEWS... it tells you if a friendly is tracking you while there doesn't seem to be the same thing for the SPO. I suppose the Soviets didn't find such a feature important.

 

There is a lot, lot more to the F-15's TEWS than people know. There's a lot more to just the RWR itself (the TEWS is not an RWR. It integrates the ECM, RWR, Countermeasures and Radar if not other things).

 

As for the SPO, it did it's job I guess.

 

In regards to the Su-27's radar, according to the Sukhoi website: "The testing of the Su-27 under a variety of programmes continued for several years longer. The Su-27 was officially put into service by a decree of the government of 23rd August 1990 after all the major faults identified during the tests had been remedied. By that time, Su-27 had been in service for 5 years."

 

This sounds contradictory because it says the government recognized it in service in 1990, yet it "had been in service" for 5 years? Perhaps IOC = 1986 and FOC = 1990?

 

Sounds right. I doubt you'd see flankers flying without radars, but their flaws may have been devastating. Who knows.

 

But it appears you are right, GG. They must've kept working on the radar. The difference between the N001 and the APG-63 in this case is that the APG-63 was good already and it seems to me that the N001 was just not up to spec until Aug., 1990.

 

Don't think the 63 didn't have problems. It also suffered from chronic low computing capacity (processors and memory were upgraded several times), but it probably didn't suffer as badly as the flanker's radar.

[SgtPappy]

Apparently the MTBF for the first batch of N001's was only 5 hours from what I've read so far today.

 

Sounds like the radar might as well have not been installed at all! I don't know what the MTBF was by the end of the decade, but I expect it to have been better since it had been worked on for 3-4 years by 1989.

 

With respect to the APG-63, it had a bunch of its problems over by the time the Su-27 entered service. Especially with the PSP upgrade, the F-15 would have been tough to kill even before the AIM-120A.

[GGTharos]

Nope .. the 63 kept getting upgrades constantly well after this too.

 

You're probably right about its effectiveness though. Typical F-15A/C air defense scenario had it defending a point target against up to 8 aircraft.

[SgtPappy]

And as much as I like all 4th gen Cold War fighters, I still think that makes the F-15 force undoubtedly the best set of cogs in the well-oiled machine that was the USAF in the 1980s.

 

It seems that the Su-27 is more of a 1-on-1, duel-to-the-death kind of aircraft.

[GGTharos]

No, all air force aircraft are part of a machine. The Su-27 was definitely part of the home defense team. The F-15 was set up like an invader - it brought everything with it.

[Sov13t]

Actually, the 27/29 family were the first aircraft within the Soviet/Russian Air Force to step away from that doctrine.

 

With data link, MiG-31 and SU-30 cooperation the 27 is able to operate without strict ground control and be as independent as your beloved F-15 - if there is a need for it. Demonstrated numerously by various exercises including the more recent demonstrations of SU-30MKIs over at Red Flag.

 

P.S.: As far as the radar concerns... by 83-84 the entire weapons system which included Radar, EOS and WCS was operation and stable. Earlier versions, prior to T10-10/11 were flawed as you described... one of the obstacles the radar team had was initially the 29 and 27 radars were being developed separately, then the decision was made to unite the two projects which presented a few set backs, eventually they got it right.

Edited June 27, 2012 by Sov13t

[GGTharos]

They were set up for homeland defense; whether this was achieved by GCI or otherwise, that was their job. It wasn't to go into someone else's back-yard generally speaking.

 

Actually, the 27/29 family were the first aircraft within the Soviet/Russian Air Force to step away from that doctrine.

 

With data link, MiG-31 and SU-30 cooperation the 27 is able to operate without strict ground control and be as independent as your beloved F-15 - if there is a need for it. Demonstrated numerously by various exercises including the more recent demonstrations of SU-30MKIs over at Red Flag.

[SgtPappy]

P.S.: As far as the radar concerns... by 83-84 the entire weapons system which included Radar, EOS and WCS was operation and stable. Earlier versions, prior to T10-10/11 were flawed as you described... one of the obstacles the radar team had was initially the 29 and 27 radars were being developed separately, then the decision was made to unite the two projects which presented a few set backs, eventually they got it right.

 

That's actually quite interesting, seeing as how the Su-27 finally entered service in 1985. But if its avionics/sensors system was all stable, what were these setbacks you mentioned that only made the USSR government declare FOC in 1990 despite there being more than 15 regiments flying the Flanker by that time?

[Frostie]

All systems have setbacks or hiccups after entering service be it the F-22 Raptor or the Tornado F model, only extensive use (through operational use) can find and help iron out these flaws via updates or refits. With the F-35, the problem with advanced tech is that not only is it easier to predict errors it's also ten fold that you're going to get them.

The F-15 itself was not without it's problems, the A version had initial problems during initial service with it's F100 engines not being able to withstand the constant throttle changes, this became a serious maintenance issue and still stands today with that engine.

[GGTharos]

In fact Frostie I think you might find the history of how those problems were resolved interesting :)

[Sov13t]

That's actually quite interesting, seeing as how the Su-27 finally entered service in 1985. But if its avionics/sensors system was all stable, what were these setbacks you mentioned that only made the USSR government declare FOC in 1990 despite there being more than 15 regiments flying the Flanker by that time?

 

In 1985 first active squadrons started receiving serial production models of the 27. This does not mean that test pilots stop their work, they continued pushing the airframe to it's limits. From 1985 through 1990 the Sukhoi bureau was already working on projects such as SU-33, SU-35, SU-34 that you see flying today. Things like vectored thrust, RVV-AE (R-77), use of side stick vs. center mounted stick, MFIs (Glass Cockpit) etc. were all tested and documented.

 

As for the reason why officially it took so long? Well, let's just say the bureaucracy was quite inefficient and still is in many areas. My guess would also be that there was a certain level of distrust to the Sukhovites after they completely redesigned the aircraft (difference between T10 and T10S). Also, the air force kept throwing more and more requirements back at the engineers, look how much time has passed what was new in the beginning of 80s already needed upgrades things like memory units, processing units etc. Overall though, it was adding new features, new weapons and new capability. For example if it wasn't for the break up of USSR we would've seen SU-27M (now known as 35) enter service in 92-94 with (at that time) N001M, newer engines etc.

[Alfa]

... one of the obstacles the radar team had was initially the 29 and 27 radars were being developed separately, then the decision was made to unite the two projects which presented a few set backs, eventually they got it right.

 

Development of radars for the MiG-29 and Su-27 were assigned to two different design houses - NIIR and NIIP respectively. At the time they were(along with other design houses) both part of an umbrella organisation called "Phazatron".

 

Apparently the situation was that the initial intention was to develop electronically steered phased array radars for both the MiG-29 and Su-27, but that it proved to be too ambitious at the time to get a working phased array radar compact and light enough for the MiG-29 and NIIR instead reverted to work on an upscaled and "up-tech'ed" version of Saphir radar(MiG-23), which became the N019. Meanwhile NIIP continiued to work on a phased array for the Su-27 until it became apparent that this too could not be ready in time for the Su-27's induction to service and it was decided that NIIR should pass on its documentation for the N019 to NIIP who then made a further upscaled version(N001) for the Su-27......which is the reason why the N019 and N001 are so similar in design and share so many components(IIRC some 80%).

 

Later NIIR concentrated their efforts on developing a slotted array radar called N010 "zhuk"(similar in design to the radars being fielded by varies US fighters at the time) for derrivative multirole versions of the MiG-29(MiG-29M and MiG-29K).

 

For example if it wasn't for the break up of USSR we would've seen SU-27M (now known as 35) enter service in 92-94 with (at that time) N001M, newer engines etc

 

The radar NIIP designed for the Su-27M was a slotted array set called N011 - similar to NIIR's N010 but with a larger antenna. This was later modified with a phased array antenna mounted on the existing hydro-mechanical drive for combined mechanical/electronic scanning - i.e. became the N011M "Bars" installed in the Su-30MKI for India.

[Alfa]

That's actually quite interesting, seeing as how the Su-27 finally entered service in 1985. But if its avionics/sensors system was all stable, what were these setbacks you mentioned that only made the USSR government declare FOC in 1990 despite there being more than 15 regiments flying the Flanker by that time?

 

The Su-33 was also flying operationally from 1994, but only accepted into service officially in 1998.

[Sov13t]

IIRC N001M was 27 radar upgrade to enable use of 77, could be wrong - read the books a long time ago. Or was it N011 to N011M?

[Alfa]

Not at the time - MiG-29M/MiG-29K and Su-27M were "full spec" developments intended to have all the "wizz bang" in terms of electronics and weaponry. The new N010 and N011 radars were "built around" the R-77 in much the same way as was the case with the N019/N001 and R-27R.

 

The idea to "back-fit" the R-77 to N019 and N001 only came about later(after the break-up of the Soviet Union and the subsequent suspension of the MiG-29M/Su-27M development) as a cost effective way to upgrade existing fighters with a more capable weapon.

 

BTW the upgraded N001 radar is called "N001VE"(it was installed in Su-30MKKs for China and AFAIK also in the recent Russian Su-27SM upgrades).

[Alfa]

...some photos.

 

I have attached some photos of the radars in question :) .

 

First NIIR-N010 "Zhuk", then NIIP-N011 and last NIIP-N011M "Bars"

[SgtPappy]

I wonder what kind of capabilities these Soviet planes would have had if the decision-makers weren't so indecisive. Of course the N001 would have unlikely been as ESA type radar, but it would have likely been better than what its baseline form.