rafale
Registered Member
Give Indians F-35 and F-22, and they will still happily get it shot down.....
On a serious note, an airforce tech buff like Warnesy should know....SPECTRA is a 90s concept......designed when most of the weapons that were to be fired at European/Western fighters were eastern bloc missiles/SAMs that were semi active radar homing.....meaning....a targeting radar would always be painting the Rafale with emissions so spectra can pick it up................this is not true with modern AESA LPI radars and data links, where only mid course correction is necessary, briefly and time to time....meaning less emissions hitting SPECTRA sensors....
There is a reason why there has been a lot of work done on IR/UV spectrum detection.........with missiles themselves getting LPI AESA seekers, it will only get worse to detect an oncoming threat.
I think SPECTRA was overhyped always..........but then again, F-35 can be shot down too under the right circumstances.....
The Rafale video from Bhatinda shoot down shows Rafale releasing flares.....seems like the pilot/system did detect a threat....though flares won't help with Radar guided missiles much......and the speed at which these BVR missiles home in......you really can't do anything.




