Depends on what costs you are looking for – the developmental cost and support costs of running upgradation programs etc are probably more for the propulsion segment , the avionics are also good contributers however that cost is generally spread over various types of aircraft.

If you are looking for procurment cost then airframe and engine are probably the bulk of the cost per unit !!

Let’s focus on the developmental cost of a single type – say F-35A or Typhoon F2. Does anybody have concrete data about the proportion radar/avionics takes?

Cheers,
Sunho

The Rafale is a low-level penetrator too and is in need for active ECM only, when detected by the AD to achive tactical surprise.

It looks like the Rafale is the only ‘new’ combat aircraft still designed for automatic terrain masking by low-level flight at night in mind. EADS claims this feature costs 60 times as much as RCS reduction measures.

Stealth helps to reduce detection radius of tracking radars, but those aircraft are still vulnerable against optical-tracking-systems for example.

What’s the typical range at which an optical tracker acquire its target? And it should be cued by other longer-range sensors to see in the right direction at the right time, I think.

Cheers,
Sunho

The article says two MiG-25 prototypes were operating in Yemen in May 1967, two months before the Domodedovo airshow!

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A retired Soviet Air Force general who was personally involved relates that two prototypes of what was to become known as the MiG-25 were based in southern Yemen in 1967.168

168. V. Vakhlamov, “Aleksandr Vybornov,” Zhurnal As [Ace Journal], 1 (1993)
[Russian] the article was reproduced at http://aces.boom.ru/all3/vyborn_ai.htm

This model had made its first test flight in 1964, but was first glimpsed by Western observers only on 9 July 1967; at the time of the Dimona overflights, it had not yet even been assigned its Soviet designation, much less its NATO appellation (Foxbat) and had never yet been detected in flight.169

169. Maj.-Gen. (ret’d) Georgy A. Bayevski, “Secret Mission in the Skies of Sinai,” first published in Vestnik Vozdushnogo Flota and reproduced at http://www.foxbat.ru/article/mig25_2/mig25_2_1.htm [Russian]; R. Prasannan, “Goodbye, MiG-25,” The Week (India,) 29 September 2002, reproduced at http://www.the-week.com/22sep29/events1.htm.

However, an official Russian military history stated recently that “The MiG-25 . . . was used in the late 1960’s on the Egyptian-Israeli front as a reconnaissance aircraft.”170

170. Zolotaryov, Russia (USSR) in Local Wars and Military Conflicts, 296.

Cheers,
Sunho