Weight APG-73 system ~450 lb and APG-79 ~650 lb = + 44 % weight

The APG-79 isn’t just an APG-73 with an AESA antenna though.

Well, an American size “S” piece of clothing would be a German size “M” and an Italian size “L”.

I prefer numbers and SI units to fuzzily defined category labels. 🙂

How’s ~.001m^2 work for you?

The appendix from the JSF program office says so, yes, but in the report you can read this:

“All JSF planes will be fifth-generation, single-engine, single-seat aircraft with supersonic dash capability and some degree of stealth (low observability to radar and other sensors).”

Still, it’s not so important what name it is, just that not all stealth is the same.

You’re absolutely right. The F-22 is stealthier than the F-35, and everything else is less stealthy than either of them.

But your receivers can difference the background noise from LPI and even make out an aircraft but his receivers can’t ? at half the distance/strength ?

LPI isn’t just about power levels. There are many aspects that make it difficult to detect on an RWR. It wouldn’t be called LPI, if it were easy to distinguish.

In what aspects and what wave lengths? What about IR signature? And considered by who?

Frontal I would imagine. I would imagine the second part of the question would be highly classified. IR signature isn’t part of the RCS. The USAF.

Nov 2005: The U.S. Air Force, in it’s effort to get money to build more F-22s, has revealed just how “stealthy” the F-22 is. It’s RCS (Radar Cross Section) is the equivalent, for a radar, to a metal marble. The less stealthy (and much cheaper) F-35, is equal to a metal golf ball. The F-35 stealthiness is a bit better than the B-2 bomber, which, in turn, was twice as good as that on the even older F-117. Much older aircraft, like the B-52, have a huge RCS, which makes them very easy to spot on radar. But with a smaller RCS, it’s more likely that the aircraft won’t be detected at all.

You can take this for what it’s worth, as it doesn’t get too specific.

I tend to believe that with a general switch towards AESA, effort is going to be made to detect LPI at far longer ranges.

Wanting and achieving are two different things though. There are still physical limitations one has to deal with do to the way LPI works, and the background RF that exists. If there were absolutely no electromagnetic background radiation, to where the detection of any radiation would be an indicator, then there’d be no problem for the RWR. The way LPI works though is to look like the natural EM radiation that normally exists, and is filtered out to prevent false alarms. LPI technology won’t rest on its laurels either.

I have not seen USAF officially state that F-35 is VLO, but if so, what is X-47 or even B-2? VVLO? It gets a bit ridicolous.

The F-35’s RCS is generally considered in the same range as the B-2(and perhaps better).

F-22 is 8 years already, maintenance can only go south from this point.

Actually the F-22 reached IOC in Dec 2005, which if my arithmetic is correct, is 3yrs and 2 months ago.:cool: