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(ratr . r GNr'The 1993Moscow Air Show

David K. Barton

Editor's note: Ihis special report is the re-sult of a visit by the author to the Moscow1993 Air Show, which was held from Au-gust 31 to September 5, 1993. The showwas held at the military airfield near Ra-menskoye, 50 km east of Moscow. The au-thor was accompanied by Drs. AlexanderLeonov and Sergey Leonov and by Prof.Alexander A. Lemansky, scientific directorof Scientific lndustrial Corp., ALMAZ, amanufacturer of radar equipment based inMoscow. His invitation was issued on be-half of the Airshow Organizing Committeeby A. Systzov, vice president of AO AVI-APROM, a joint stock company headquar-tered in Moscow. The material contained inthis special report is similar to photos anddescriptions in classified documents, butthis is the first time such photos and de-scriptions have been available to a generalaudience. The four-color photos of equip-ment described in the report appear as athree-page photo exposition.

IntroductionThe 1993 Moscow Air Show in-

c l u d e d a n e x t e n s i v e d i s p l a y o fRussian radars and tact ica l mis-s i l es , i nc lud ing the SA-10 , SA-12and SA-15 su r face- to -a i r m iss i lesystems and thei r radars, a dualgun-miss i le ant ia i rcraf t system, aphased-array radar for location ofhost i le ar t i l lery posi t ions, and nu-merous a i r - l aunched miss i les , aswell as the aircraft on display. Thisart icle discusses the exhibited ra-dar and related equipment.

S300PMU (SA-10) SystemAt the equ ipment d i sp lay , the

SA-10 equipment was toured. Thefire control radar (NATO designa-tion Flap Lid) and the operating po-sit ions in the command post vehiclew e r e e x h i b i t e d . D a t a f r o m t h ethree-d imensional survei l lance ra-dar (Big Bird) were displayed in thevehicle. The horizon search radar(C lam She l l ) was no t on d isp lay .Figure 1 shows the Flap Lid vehicle.

Big Bird Three-DimensionalSurvei l lance Radar

The mobile Big Bird on display,as shown in F igu res 2 and 3 , i s

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mounted on an eight-wheeled trail-er pul led by a large prime mover.The antenna is an S-band space-fed t ransmiss ion lens a r ray , fedf r o m b o t h s i d e s b y f e e d h o r n sm o u n t e d o n a b e a m p a s s i n gacross the top of the aftay. The ar-ray conta ins 3400 e lements andappears to fold for transport alongvertical lines parallel to the sides ofthe equ ipment she l te r . The e le -ments are matched to space withwhat appear to be e longated d i -electric bars that are tilted upwardsto optimize performance at anglesabove the horizontal.

The search beams, scann ingelectronical ly in elevation, lead thearray broadside by 30' in azimuth.W h e n a t a r g e t i s d e t e c t e d i n asearch beam, af ter a fur ther 29"rotat ion of the antenna, a back-scan is ini t iated in azimuth to placea validation beam on the elevationand azimuth of the init ial detection.l f the detection is repeated in thisval idation beam, another backscanoccurs 180" later in the scan, usingthe feed horn on the opposite sideof the array. Thus, wi th in 210' o frotat ion fol lowing the init ial detec-t i o n , a v a l i d a t i o n a n d a s e c o n dtrack point are obtained to init iatethe t rack f i le . From th is point on,the track data rate is two points perantenna rotat ion. The cost of thistwo-coordinate scanning array maybe higher than most Western sys-tems, but the advantages in rapidt rack in i t ia t ion and doubled datarate are significant.

Command PostWithin the Command Post (CP)

were f i ve d isp lay pos i t i ons , p lusposit ions for communications per-sonnel. The commander's consolew a s t h e c e n t e r o f t h e i i v e c o n -soles, which were almost identical.Each console had a large plan po-s i t i oner ind ica to r (PP l ) d i sp lay ingsynthet ic v ideo f rom the Big Bi rd

a n d f r o m e x t e r n a l s o u r c e s , a sshown in Figures 4 and 5. To theleft of the PPI is an alphanumericdisplay on which appear the datafor up to 36 targets. They are as-s igned (s ix each) to the s ix F lapLids that may be controlled by theCP. To the commander's left , thetwo positions are occupied by offi-cers who actual ly f i re the missi les.To the right are officers who coor-dinate with higher headquarters oradjacent CPs, who accept assign-ments of targets to be passed bythe commander to the Flap Lids inpr ior i ty order , and who evaluatet a r g e t s d e t e c t e d l o c a l l y b y B i gBird. The smal l d isp lays at thesepositions can be set to provide az-imuth -e leva t ion (BE) d isp lays o fBig Bird video, intensity modulatedto show target elevation. The BigBird data appear on the PPI d is-play as an intensif ied sweep, leav-ing behind target markers with al-p h a n u m e r i c t a g s , w h i c h a r e r e -freshed at a high rate.

Fire Control Radar S300PMU1(Flap Lid)

The Flap Lid radar tracks up tosix targets that have been assignedby the CP for engagement. The ar-ray is an X-band space-fed lens of10,000 elements, t i l ted 30' from thevert ical, as shown in Figures 6 and7. The active portion of the array iscircular, and small sidelobe cancel-er arrays are within the plastic cov-er at the bottom of the main array.The array is mounted on a rotat-able turret behind the cab of the ve-hicle and in front of the f ixed equip-ment shelter.

T h e R F a n d l F e q u i p m e n t i smounted within the turret, el iminat-ing rotary jo in ts and long runs ofwaveguide or coaxial cable for re-ceiver signals. The feed, shown in

[Photo Exposit ion begins on page 26]

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MICROWAVE JOURNAL . MAY 1994