Ahh right.

So the US can have GPS ‘cos they can switch it on and off to suit their needs, yet Europe availing of the exact same principals would be of ‘deep concern’ or some similar bull****.

sferrin, I know what your saying earlier about not giving a **** about the other side in war, and your right – I agree with that policy 100% [as long as its confined to removing the military of the opposition – civilians are strictly off-limits]. However, if you don’t go out of your way to pi_s off the other guy in the first place there is no (or less) reason for a war in the first place.

As I put emphasis on earlier, I don’t know how accurate the original posted report was – but the undertones it generates do not mix well with current US foreign policy. I’m sure anyone on here can see that.

The method of countering it would be different but even if they could detect wakes stealth would matter. For instance you have the supersize A380 wake vs a subsonic T-38 wake. LOADS of difference.

You’ll not be able to counter the wake produced off a low aspect ratio wing.

Its physics.

Until space-time manipulation [anti-gravity] devices come along, that won’t change. ESA have already demonstrated such manipulation in the laboratory though, so give it a hundred years, maybe sooner.

There is the problem of hiding the aircraft’s wake, once a wake can be seperated from the background clutter by computers stealth is over.

Well… as far as atmospheric flight goes – space is another matter 🙂

Uhh, I had heard it was going to be a straight development of the B2A…

Indeed, NG has apparently asked the USAF if it could have one of the service B2As back as a test mule for this B2B.

Aurora (at least as a Mach 5+ hypersonic aircraft) doesn’t exist, end of.

It may be a general name for ELINT projects, or possibly, the name of a ELINT pack to put in the shuttle’s bay. [no evidence, but it makes sense – you cant hide something from the shuttle as it can change orbits very frequently and go geo-synchronous if it has to]

It doesn’t make “stealth” obsolete.

Fighter radars are still X-band, which are very much vunerable to the VLO tech contained in the F-22/B-2 etc. So the F-22 still has a significant advantage in A2A engagements.

When the radar wavelength is of the order of the aircraft itself, any measures taken to redirect or absorb the radar wave are rendered totally obsolete. Not 90% effective, not 80% effective – 0% effective.

The laws of physics might be the same, but the RCS of the F 22 isn’t the same with those of S 37 or MFI

It will be for a metre wavelength radar.

All the VLO features of the world simply don’t apply – alot of people have problems seeing this.

1. And how exactly they are so sure that this radar would detect stealth targets when they don’t have such for testing?

They do.

You don’t have to have a full sized aircraft in the air to do radar tests.

The MFI RCS models are undoubtedly still around, allegedly the S-37 had RCS reduction measures incorporated, no doubt that model still exists. There is the I-2000, and the PAK-FA.

Any number of models to test on, scale the wavelength appropriately and bob’s yer uncle.