US Stealth Jet Has To Talk To Allied Planes Over Unsecured Radio

Lasrick writes "David Axe at Wired's Danger Room explains: 'For the first time, America's top-of-the-line F-22 fighters and Britain's own cutting-edge Typhoon jets have come together for intensive, long-term training in high-tech warfare. If only the planes could talk to each other on equal terms. The F-22 and the twin-engine, delta-wing Typhoon — Europe’s latest warplane — are stuck with partially incompatible secure communications systems. For all their sophisticated engines, radars and weapons, the American and British pilots are reduced to one-way communication, from the Brits to the Yanks. That is, unless they want to talk via old-fashioned radio, which can be intercepted and triangulated and could betray the planes’ locations. That would undermine the whole purpose of the F-22s radar-evading stealth design, and could pose a major problem if the Raptor and the Typhoon ever have to go to war together.'"

Comments

Re:I don't think the cypher is the problem.

[jacknifetoaswan]

In a true air-to-air conflict, there will be radar signals bouncing all over the place, originating from everything from AWACS to SAM sites. There's plenty of emission, just from the defensive ground stations. A really good passive seeker is all you need for target acquisition, especially when your aircraft is equipped with fire-and-forget missiles that have their own active seeker, and require no intervention from the pilot of the firing aircraft.