F-35 enroute to a target has minimal RF emissions as part of its design:
>IFF transponder – normally turned off, on for traffic management over friendly territory
>missile approach warning system – 360 degree IR imaging through DAS
>radar altimeter – typically turned off, also has an LPI mode, 3D nav via GPS is normal
>voice comms – typically not used except near friendly airbase, also has an LPI mode
>datalinks – compressed burst transmission using LPI mode (if ORCLE can be made to work, laser DL/Comms will be virtually undetectible)
>fire control radar – mainly used in recieve mode, can be used in LPI mode to determine target coordinates, can be used for electronic attack
There are a couple orders of magnitude difference in total radiated RF energy when comparing gen 4 and gen 5 jets.
All these that u have mentioned are pretty achieveable for virtually any aircraft, especially 4.5 gen ones, where they are designed from the start to be able to incorporate “smart skins”, just like F-35.
And u probably can bet on the fact that by the time F-35 have its IOC, Typhoon and Rafale would have more than matured on these tech… however F-35 still have the advantage of all-aspect stealth
What remains to be seen are the cost of one such jet…
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