When I look in the enceclopedia, I find a russian missile who tracks its target with SAR. But I have no idea what that means exept search and rescue. pleaese help me. O, and sorry for the bad english, I am Dutch:P
SAR - semi active radar. It means the aircraft illuminates the bandit with radar and the missile homes in onto the radar energy reflected from the bandit. Obviously a semi active missile is cheaper to build as it only needs radar receiver electronics. The down side is that the aircraft must keep its radar pointing at the bandit until the missile hits.
Active radar is when the missile has its own radar Obviously active radar missile is a bit more expensive as it needs radar transmitter and receiver electronics. The up side of active missiles is that the aircraft need only be pointing its own radar at the bandit until such a time as the missile is in range (eg 15km?) to use its own radar.
