"AESA radars are remarkably reliable"

Phazotron-NIIR Corporation is one of Russia’s leading developers of airborne radars, including those for the Mikoyan MiG-29 family. It pioneered active electronically scanned array (AESA) technology in this country; the resultant radar is installed on the MiG-35 fighter. On the eve of MAKS 2011, Phazotron-NIIR General Designer Yuri Guskov told Show Observer about potential AESA applications and the corporation’s plans for the future.

— The Zhuk-AE AESA radar for the MiG-35 fighter has remained the main product of your corporation for the past several years. Unfortunately, the aircraft has missed the shortlist under the Indian MMRCA tender. Where are you planning to use your radar now?
— As a designer I was proud to learn that when [Russian state arms exporter] Rosoboronexport was analyzing the reasons for the aircraft’s failure in the Indian tender, there was not a single criticism of our radar. Despite a certain bias on the part of the Indian evaluation pilots, their overall appraisal of the radar was very favorable. Everyone loved its extremely maintenance-friendly design, which allows for easy dismantling and reinstallation of the radar “in the field”.
Although the aircraft missed the shortlist we have not stopped working on the radar — although, admittedly, we did slow down a little. We continue to build a production-standard prototype with the number of transceiver modules increased to 1,016. The radar has a detection range of 250 km, whereas the Indian tender specifications were for just 130 km. Also, it is a truly multimode radar, with assorted mapping and target recognition capabilities.
It has been decided that the Russian Defense Ministry will order the MiG-35. A number of such aircraft will enter service [with the Russian Air Force]. They will be equipped with Zhuk radars. In addition, we offer the radar as an upgrade solution for newly-built MiG-29 fighters, and for retrofitting those aircraft already in operation. No airframe changes will be required.
I’m all for fitting MiG-29s with an AESA radar, because such systems are remarkably reliable. We have performed about 50 test flights with Zhuk-AE, and there were no malfunctions of the radar. We estimate the mean time between failures as being not less than 600 hours, but I think that 1,000 hours is a fairly realistic figure as well.