KJ-600 would be fitted an advanced active electronically scanned array, or AESA, radar which could enable it to spot stealth aircraft such as US F-22s and F-35s.
Beijing-based military expert Li Jie said the new surveillance plane could also become a command centre in the air.
“AESA can detect stealth fighters at a very long range,” Li said.
US-based military website Eastern Arsenal reported last year that the KJ-600 was being built by Xi’an Aircraft Corporation, weighed 25-30 tonnes, was powered by twin turboprop engines, and had a large AESA radar on its fuselage.
AESA (Active Electronically Scanned Array) radar, which emits separate radio waves on different frequencies, on Navy ships. By rapidly changing frequencies, the radar is more difficult to fool. The system are apparently capable of locating a stealth aircraft within 220 miles.
“It is the physics of longer wavelength and resonance that enables VHF and UHF radar to detect stealth aircraft,” Westra wrote in his article, titled “Radar vs. Stealth.”
operate at frequencies between 300 MHz and one GHz, which results in wavelengths that are between 10 centimeters and one meter long. Typically, due to the physical characteristics of fighter-sized stealth aircraft, they must be optimized to defeat higher frequencies in the Ka, Ku, X, C and parts of the S-bands.
There is a resonance effect that occurs when a feature on an aircraft — such as a tail-fin tip — is less than eight times the size of a particular frequency wavelength. That omnidirectional resonance effect produces a “step change” in an aircraft’s radar cross-section.
Effectively, what that means is that small stealth aircraft that do not have the size or weight allowances for two feet or more of radar absorbent material coatings on every surface are forced to make trades as to which frequency bands they are optimized for.
Military analysts said photographs of the KJ-600 suggested it was very similar to the E-2 Hawkeye, the US’ all-weather, carrier-capable tactical airborne early-warning aircraft.
Military analyst Zhou Chenming, also based in Beijing, said the KJ-600 radar system would put the plane on a par with US early-warning aircraft.
“The biggest advantage of the KJ-600 is it’s equipped with a more sophisticated radar and communication system allowing it to monitor a wider range of signals and even detect stealth fighters in a certain angle,” Zhou said.
CCTV- Story of development Radars
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