LowObservableFor two aircraft with such similarities in coating and dimensional design, it’s probably quite a large factor. The Ho 229 only had an RCS a third smaller than aircraft of similar size. A third reduction in physical cross-section has the same affect mathematically.
Operationally, the difference would not be significant and the Horten has nothing to do with the matter. Also, consider that smaller size makes you more susceptible to Rayleigh scattering.
the EO/IRST function is actually separate to AAQ-40 EOTS and is within the AAQ-37 EODAS,
http://i16.servimg.com/u/f16/12/26/75/01/eotsjs10.jpg
EODAS is designed to detect and track targets, but at short range. Its range and resolution are limited by its design, and are similar to an early cell-phone camera. Which will, indeed, detect something burning 3000 pounds of fuel per second.
Perhaps you should read the article on the Chinese passive radar. It works on identical principles and even states that targeting is not possible with it.
Counter-LO radar is not confined to PCL systems, although these will be useful as cueing devices for such things as advanced ground-based AESA.
LowObservable“I touched a nerve” – the mating call of the common troll.
No, Lukos, you are annoying people because you are spamming the board. You can do this because you don’t care whether your statements are accurate or not, and therefore don’t feel the need to research facts or cite evidence.
Let’s take a few examples, shall we?
That means that on a smaller aircraft, the RCS is likely to be even lower.
The dimensional difference between the F-22 and F-35 will be overwhelmed by differences in shaping. Physical size is a relatively small factor in RCS.
Furthermore, not only does the F-35 have a better AESA radar than the competitors, it also has a better IRST system too.
Actually, it doesn’t have an IRST “system” at all. It has a so-called IRST function built into the EOTS, which is a single-band thermal camera like a 2000-era targeting pod. These can be used in an air-to-air mode, but that somehow has not stopped the air forces of Singapore and Korea installing IRST right above the TDP on their F-15s.
passive targeting has very limited testing to back it up
So Lockheed Martin has sold IRST systems based on theory? The F-14D IRST was never tested before it was declared operational? The Typhoon system as well?
Quite frankly an upgraded F-16, which already has AESA available and is available now, could offer the same [as Gripen E] at a lower unit and operational cost.
Please supply data (this is not the first time you have been asked to do that). Also, if that is the case, why did LM pass up a 100-aircraft opportunity in Brazil, using Embraer as a foothold and low-cost partner to sweep the rest of the subcontinent? That would seem to be high-order management incompetence for which someone should be fired.
Roke Manor developed passive anti-stealth radar back in the ’90s. It allows detection but not targeting. It’s not new, it was a known all along.
If you think that a single 20-year-old study is the state of the art in RF counterstealth, you are a long way behind. Or possibly you know better, which is worse.
There’s much more. But it takes time to verify facts, and I only have so much of that this morning.
If I was running this board, I would at least suspend you and threaten you with the banhammer if you continue to post rubbish.
LowObservableSo does someone think that the Swedes won’t let Gripen anywhere near Rafale because le Rafale va lui donner les coups de pieds au cul? Or is it that the Swedes don’t trust the French to not be using any exercise opportunity to “suck up the trons”, as that entertainingly indiscreet USAF colonel said on his video?
Because it’s still more likely to have something to do with Nato.
LowObservablePeople who lie to Congress go to prison.
What did you learn in school today,
Dear little boy of mine?
I learned that Washington never told a lie.
I learned that soldiers seldom die.
I learned that everybody’s free,
And that’s what the teacher said to me.
Chorus
That’s what I learned in school today,
That’s what I learned in school.
LowObservableDJ – I am not grousing, just stating facts. Please don’t impute emotions. It’s the sign of the angry and weak.
LowObservableWell, that’s just supercalifragilistically freaking awesome Mr Spud. It differs from corporate and program participant puffery about every other project in the world exactly how? The sims are different exactly how? Wake up sheeple. EVERY pilot says “it flew just like the sim” ever since the urban legend about Geoffrey Auty landing after the first flight of the 188… The sim said it was going to fly like a pig and indeed it did.
LowObservableI claim the justification of fair comment.
But to the serious point raised by Tu-22M: If I’m looking at claims made for any defense system, I don’t have the ability to check them against data, because that’s usually classified. Even insiders know only about their own systems, unless they’ve been the source selection authority in an open competition.
However, I give more credence to claims that are specific and verifiable/falsifiable (eg, “IRST can detect targets irrespective of RCS at ranges compatible with AMRAAM engagement”) and that have a plausible explanation behind them (in that case, that the processing has finally caught up with the physics).
I give less credence to general claims (“400/600 per cent superior in air combat”) that are not verifiable or falsifiable (in that case, because the power is all in the assumptions and the RoE).
I give no credence at all to claims that come down to “it’s the newest so it must be the best.”
LowObservableIt’s a callsign, Hopsalot. Lighten up or I’ll start calling you One Legged Man, as in “as much use as a one-legged man in an ****-kicking contest.”
LowObservablePotato Head
Please explain, with documentation, why the F-35 simulators are “the best ever built”.
Please produce quotes and evidence that show how the F-35 simulation will provide more effective training than other training systems.
Please explain exactly why and how the F-35’s sensors will be better than contemporary versions of APG-79/Raven, IRST/Litening 4, Spectra &c, without resorting to unverifiable claims about fusion magic.
Please also outline how the operators (particularly outside the US) will be able to access, control and understand the “fusion engine” in the F-35, so that they will not have to tell the Hague that the software black box told them to shoot the school bus.
Describe the means that the F-35 has to record and download sensor data for post-action review (as is built into Litening 4).
LowObservableHigher tempo/arrive on site quicker? Will the F-35 go supersonic on a CAS mission? Most unlikely given the sacrifice of endurance.
Further away? Will the F-35 deliver an hour loiter at 360 nm with 3,000 lb of bombs and a gun? (We know the 2B won’t.)
Nor is it a “perceived” failing – it’s the absence of a feature that is considered mandatory for the mission. And of course Rover is newer than the start of the F-35 program (as are many things, thanks to its glacial pace) but have we not heard ad nauseam about the jet’s flexibility, growth potential and open architecture?
LowObservableWow, the second commentator in two pages who doesn’t care if a few guys get killed as long as their pet airplane gets sold.
No, PotatoHead, Halloweene is dead right. Rover is revolutionary. It’s live video that shows the JTAC on the ground what the TDP – and hence the laser and weapons – is pointed at. That’s life insurance, and it is why you are flat-out not allowed to do CAS in many AoRs without it. This is the military – nothing goes from new-invention to mandatory that fast unless it works.
And except in the case of the F-35, it’s not hard to integrate. Only a complete addlepated idiot would voluntarily disregard it – and of course the USMC will still have lots of Harriers and Hornets by the time LMT has cashed its $xx billion checks for Block 4A/B and brought it on to the airplane.
Tell me about how the USMC can do CAS with a Roverless F-35 when they’ve done it for real, with bombs and missiles and Marines on the ground below them.
The body armor analogy fails. The issue in question is what unique strategic effects the F-35B and LHA/D combo delivers in return for its very high price tag, not whether it’s nice to have some extra fighters here are there.
LowObservableSince it has appeared at approximately two airshows, which happens also to be the number of shows where it has failed to show up despite vastly expensive preparations, that’s not saying a lot. Granted, so far it’s doing better than the B-58. That’s not exactly a high bar either.
LowObservableA heavily loaded F-16 with a drag index of 150 (a point where the F-35 beats the F-16 in pretty much all performance figures) burns 2400lb/hr.
O rly? Mil power SFC is about 0.76, so a heavily loaded F-16 is tooling along on 4,150 pounds of thrust for a lift/drag ratio of >10?* And what tanker, may I ask?
*Actually the thrust for 2,400 lb/hr fuel flow may be less since the engine is operating off-design.
LowObservableWow, AJ, that’s a whole lot of big blue balls there.
The problem with the Z-axis interconnected leveraged information-manager dingo’s kidneys that some people talk about the F-35B is that its maximum fuel fraction, which is directly related to endurance, is the lowest of any modern fighter aircraft – and even a fully gassed-up, loaded-down Rafale or F-15E isn’t particularly good at persistence. Maintaining a basic CAP will be hard enough.
Neither is a fighter radar a particularly good surveillance radar (for numerous reasons starting with a 120-deg. field of regard), and by the way, the F-35 has no stealth-compatible datalink to talk to the ship.
Lukos – USS America is big enough for the F-35B not to have to use vertical thrust very often,
You might want to produce some evidence for this (I’ll save you time – there isn’t any) or maybe, just maybe, you’s stop wasting people’s time with rubbish that you pulled straight out of your ear, but that’s just my last little bit of hope speaking.
LowObservableYou might lose someone, but that’s a risk of war.
Play computer games much? Although you are recognizing the flaw in your “hunt and kill ASCMs” argument: it only takes one leaker for a bad day and two for a very bad one, and ASCMs are small (relative to TBMs or LRSAMs) even when not deliberately disguised as ISO containers. The USN does not have much focus on surface ASW, and even the CSGs have been repeatedly embarrassed by sharp operators in SSKs.
As for the Falklands, you are overlooking a vast and obvious factor and I can’t be bothered enlightening you.
FBW – If you’re correct (and the decision on the first two LHAs has never been explained very well) the screw-up is bigger than I thought, because alongside the supposedly helo-focused, 200-km-range “ship to objective maneuver” plan they were working on the over-the-horizon AAV and the LCAC replacement. And as I understood STOM it was more about landing behind the coast from an over-the-horizon distance than it was about further standoff.
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