So it’s an assumption.
It’s also not all that credible given that the USAF desperately wanted as many F22 at this time as it could possibly get.
It was hardly likely to be bigging up the ecm / rwr capabilities of legacy platfroms v it.

Call it an educated guess.:cool:

One can use all sorts of information implied or otherwise to form a composite picture. You might not get the specifics, but you can certainly get a pretty good general idea.

Well the US(and F-35 partner nations), Russia, India, China seem to feel that passive stealth still has a lot of time left, in terms of effectiveness, and combined with EW there’s a far greater synergy, than EW alone. It’s a very important factor of breaking the opponent’s kill chain, especially when combined with very high situational awareness. The F-22 has demonstrated how effective its stealth is vs. non-stealthy opponents(even equipped with very good avionics- and since they were US forces, the F-22 didn’t have to refrain from using its LPI modes), as well as vs. simulated SAM threats on calibrated ranges designed to test it observability. Then add in that all the AESA equipped fighters are going to have EA capabilities, as well as support from F-15Cs w/ jammers, the NGJ on F-35/F-18s, MALD-Js, and other airborne jamming assets, combined with other non-kinetic weapons designed to go neutralize early warning/GCI systems.

Turn rate is not made for avoiding missile whereas is for pointing foes a/s.

Which is why WVR with 2 aircraft, each with HMS and HOBS weapons is a losing proposition.

I really don’t want to reply, but i can’t let you and others get away with making these absolute statements such as: “the fact that the F-35 will be better able to set up an engagement on its own terms.”

You don’t know this for a fact at all.
The best you can actually state is that you hope that it may be a fact in the future.

How is having confidence in the merits of passive stealth any different than believing that ECM on a non-stealth aircraft will offer the same level of protection? There seems to be a lot of confidence that Spectra will be able to overcome anything thrown at it, and that no RF missiles will be able to hit the Rafale. Of course this crowd ignores the fact that in addition to the passive stealth, the USAF/USN/USMC will also be adding the NGJ, along with other EW assets in support of these aircraft with passive stealth. In otherwords, they’ll have the advantages of advanced EW, without the liabilities of being non-stealthy.

Quite on the contrary, it was a masterpiece landing on one wheel to demonstrate how automatic landing system would kick in.

edit: dionis beat me to it

From the pic(and obviously it’s hard to see what the other side of the runway looks like from the pilot’s perspective) it looks precariously close to dragging the right rear stabilator in the dirt. It’s nice to know that the automatic landing system can compensate, but it looks an awful lot like a stunt that could result in the loss of an aircraft and pilot, if anything didn’t go exactly right.

Wow…

Hey Jessmo24 : F-22 IS THE ULTIMATE A2A/A2G FIGHTER that will NEVER BE OUTCLASSED IN ANY ASPECT ! ! !

Are you happy now ? Do you feel better ?

😡

You’re ignoring the fact that the F-22 has planned upgrades and growth potential too. As threats change and get more capable, you’ll see improvements in the F-22 to reflect that. Mods that we know are either currently being done are the software/radar upgrades to to improve the A2G capabilities, MADL datalinks, MLDs to detect aircraft threats as well as missile threats ala DAS. We know AIM-120D and AIM-9X are being integrated which will provide more lethality. There’s room for the AIRST, and cheek arrays, if it’s determined that they’re necessary.

Pure speculation as you hardly have any data to support your claim. But anyway, Meteor range is 100+ km, which was precisely my point. Especially if you paint the Rafale with your radar, as you would need to go towards it.

The Raptor will detect a Rafale much further away than 100km. The Rafale won’t detect the Raptor anywhere near the Meteor’s effective range.

Wrightwing brought the 120D so it’s fair game to bring in the Meteor. Anyway the Mica has a range of 80km, which is quite close to the 80/90km range you have been quoting.

The -120D is already being purchased, and should be in the inventory shortly. The Meteor won’t be available till ~2015.

Twice as fast? Rafale can supercruise around M1.2 with AA load. Yes there is still a difference but not as big as one would be able to “circle” around the Rafale. And even if you could circle around and get on it’s back the Mica can be fired in the plan’s 180° anyway.

How long can the Rafale maintain M1.2 though? How far away can the Mica engage a target that’s on the Rafale’s 6 o’clock?

And radar doesn’t?
Just examine the beam towards the maximum range, for even as high as 50-60dB gain MSA antennas, or AESA’s clipped beams.
IRST works very much like an MSA radar and can permanently search for IR sources, if set to do so.
So no, IRST can actively search for targets, just like the radar does and it doesn’t need to hope for a fluke.
IRST search sensor doesn’t change resolution while scanning, but larger volumes scans reduce dwelling time and so reduce chances of detecting the target, exactly the same way as with any radar system.

It’s still going to take an IRST a long time to do a large volume search at max ranges compared to a radar, as that’s more akin to looking through a straw. If the pilot knows a target is likely in a certain area, then the search can be much more efficient. It’s just like on the F-35 where the EOTS will have a much longer range than the DAS, due to the limitations of having a wide field of view coverage, whereas the EOTS will have an adjustable aperture size for distant targets.