Though, AESA-equipped fighters would still be able to jam and then fry the guidance systems onboard the missiles, rendering them harmless. The aircraft would only have to worry if the missile was fired in their blind spot from too close of a distance for them to react, which proper tactics would alleviate. For example in Combat Air Patrol missions with two fighters, they’d be facing in opposite directions to cover each other’s six o’clock positions. Datalinking allows fighters to share information about the battlespace, so as long as there are eyes facing in each direction, all datalinked parties will have a virtual 360-degree field of view. AWACS also possess datalinking capability, with an AESA upgrade in the near future.

1) It’s not in production.

2) The export version would have a primitive avionics package compared to the Russian version, especially for “two-bit” dictators from Venezuela.

3) From a kinematic standpoint, it wouldn’t be a match against even an F-15 with the (V)2 AESA radar, let alone the (V)3 AESA radar that will be upgraded on majority of the remaining F-15 fleet. With this radar the Su-37 wouldn’t know it was being locked onto or tracked since the Radar Warning Receivers on the Su-37 wouldn’t trip. Also, the Su-37’s own radar would become useless since AESA radars have the ability to jam conventional radars. Should the Su-37 manage a missile shot (radar or IR), the AESA radar is powerful enough to focus it’s beam’s energy and function like a high-powered microwave… actually frying missile guidance electronics.

At the moment AESA capability is in it’s infancy in Russia and only a few select fighter aircraft actually have it or will have it, a capability that the US has had since 1999. Export versions would be less likely, and pricey.

The F-22’s APG-77 radar is a newer AESA radar compared to the first generation (V)2 radar, and has already demonstrated all the same capabilities listed above to a greater extent.

ywan… I think that age question is best directed to your man-child president who gave
$800 million to the Palestinian Authority.

Keep in mind, we could have had another eight F-22s for that price. Which, even if you think the F-22 is useless, it can’t possibly be as useless as giving nearly a billion dollars to a corrupt and incompetent Palestinian Authority.

Furthermore although it is never publicly questioned in the US that the US is a democracy it is questioned by many in Europe, including many Ex-Pats.

its not a matter of if they can… it is do they? Other things to consider:

1. I think most 2 bits dont get top notch tech in their export versions
2. They send their sons and cousins (who most likely are not the best candidates) to be their pilots pilots

How old are you? 12?

Meme number 1: The F-22 hasn’t been used in Afghanistan or Iraq. In itself this is a statement of the obvious. What makes it a meme is the corollary that the F-22 is militarily irrelevant. However, there are many capabilities that haven’t been used in those theaters — submarines, for instance — but nobody seems to panic as we keep spending money on those.

Meme number 2: The F-22 was an airplane that the Pentagon did not want. Since when has the Pentagon been of one mind? The right number of F-22s was the subject of controversy within the Pentagon; and the firings of the two top Air Force leaders a year ago were clearly related to that argument.

Meme number 3: The F-22 is a Cold War weapon and therefore obsolete. Again, no argument, the requirement was written in the Cold War — but the same can be said of supercarriers and submarines, the Virginia being a downsized Seawolf. The Joint Strike Fighter’s basic requirement document, although it is post-Cold War, precedes the current conflict, Bosnia and the other unexpectedly messy contingencies that have followed Desert Storm. It wasn’t designed to chase Terry Taliban around the Af-Pak border, any more than the F-22 was.

Meme number 4: The F-22 was designed to shoot down enemy fighters, and there are few of those so we need few F-22s. But as anyone who was around for the start of the project knows, the combination of speed, altitude and all-round stealth was aimed — absolutely and intentionally — at defeating SAMs.

Meme number 5: The F-22 is an unreliable hangar queen — the WaPo said so. So coincidentally, just before a narrow vote, all sorts of Pentagon sources decide it’s their duty to leak all kinds of negative (but arguable) stuff about the F-22. It might have been that way. Barney might be a real dinosaur.

Meme number 6: The JSF will cost “half as much” as the F-22. It’s more correct to say that the F-35A may get to that point (the B and C certainly won’t), once full-rate production gets going, if from now on the program performs far better than any previous Pentagon project. Which, so far, it has not done. Even then, to do this it has to break the model under which similar aircraft, built under similar circumstances, tend to cost about the same amount in terms of dollars per pound of empty weight. Nobody has done that yet, either.

Meme number 7: The F-22 takes money away from the “warfighters” and their real needs. Apart from being a handy emotive criticism of any weapon that you don’t like that’s not a container-load of body armor or a one-war-wonder MRAP, it’s not correct. What the USAF has been talking about for years is — given that you’re going to maintain a fighter force — what the right mix of F-22s and F-35s might be within a given budget.

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/defense/index.jsp?plckController=Blog&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&plckPostId=Blog:27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post:338b1664-f6f7-4795-939b-16536947dafb

Yep. barry boy..

I would like to see that also!

Cheaper less extensive coatings?

Much of the reason that there aren’t any extant near-peers it that it IS so expensive to get to our level. If our level is no longer high, then maybe it’s not so hard to get there after all. “Deterrence” means more than just “we can blow you up”.

Cole: You’re putting a lot of weight on TBM threat to fixed bases.

A: as I’ve said, THIS STILL APPLIES TO THE F-35. It’s cheaper to buy more missiles than it is to build more airbases.

B: Accurate TBM is not a trivial technology issue. We’re not talking about FROGs, here. Your “they’ll never have the technology” argument is as applicable to TBMs as it is to high-spec fighter aircraft. And there are a great many defenses against TBM–and wouldn’t it be easier to defend fewer locations than many? Isn’t that an argument in favor of consolidation (and the F-22)?

C: Maintenance costs. Allow me to pull an argument from the V-22 discussion and point out that the F-22 has been in service for less than four years. And I recall various glowing projections of how easy it was going to be to maintain the F-22; and I’m seeing those same comments in all the Powerpoint packages about the F-35. Why should we think that the F-35 will be any less expensive to operate than the F-22?