So what is the enemy doing at this time?

Holding up signs saying “Shoot here”?

If its a similar situation to Iraq, then F15Cs and Es could do the job every bit as well with commonality for maintenance.

If its against a technologically advanced foe – well, don’t assume such an easy ingress to the target.

What if they have top notch SAMS, or relocated their aircraft, or point defense missile destroyers (in the mould of a LPWS)?
What happens the easy destruction of the airfield then?

That and the amount of money spent on the F-22 makes me believe that they might have achieved another breakthrough or at least have reduced the IR-signature to a surprisingly low level. Why they are not talking about it. Perhaps it is because those technics could be more easily adapted to exisiting designs, then the reduction of the radar crosssection. And with TVR engines there are ways to even reduce the IR signature of the engine.

I don’t see nothing to indicate breakthrough technologies, and I’ll say again, the nozzles of the F-22 have not been designed for IR suppression (the former director of aerodynamics and flight control categorically stated that yesterday at a guest lecture so there is no point arguing it).

The only heat soaking I am aware of is the fuel cooling with heat exchanger located in a more optimal position than the leading edge of the wing surfaces. Besides there is only so much you can do with heat, either absorb it or remove it and vent it somewhere else.

Just a couple of things on the F-22.

Without thrust vectoring, it has marginally more pitch authority than an F-15, but significantly less than a F-16.

They do use the fuel to cool the wing surface, this heat is then vented out (through an exchanger) on the upper fuselage surface.

It has a controllable AoA up to approx 60 deg, but stalls at around 35 deg. A large part of this controllabilty is soley due to the use of and positioning of the two “vertical” stabilisers and the chimed forebody. They also use the thrust vectoring in the same fashion as below – i.e. to allow the elevators to be set at a ‘neutral’ optimal position to still provide good control authority.

Its supersonic manoverability comes from thrust vectoring – they use it to re-trim the aircraft (necessary due to the centre of pressure shift in supersonic flight), so the elevators can remain in their centre position, giving more leverage (and thus more authority) either way.

They tried to incorporate independant thrust vectoring for both nozzles (i.e. one up, one down) to augment roll speed, but due to the close proximity of the nozzles to the centreline of the aircraft, it didn’t help. I guess the MiG-29 and Su-35/30 MKI can make this work as their engines are spaced further apart (may also be fuselage symmetry effects – don’t ask!).

edit: Oh, and the nozzles are not designed with IR suppression in mind.

edit2: expansion on previous points

After one invents a material offering at least twice the strength and half the weight, effectively quadrupling its efficiency. If that is achieved there are so many problems solved (A380 weights only 100 tons empty, Dodge Suburban has 600kg empty weight).

Already have – carbon nanotubes. The knowledge base on them is growing much quicker than projected, and they are in limited production already.

Well, I’d consider the space elevator to be an integral part of mankinds space exploration. I expect it to be up and running before 2020.

All the main technological obstacles have been overcome already, its just a case of refining manufacturing techniques and its sorted 🙂

Radar will be able to defeat stealth when CPU power is large enough to allow for discerning of trailing vortices in the air.

You can hide your radar signature, but you cannot hide your aerodynamic disturbance.

Not to mention the radar reflection from the shockwaves being given off.

I would imagine the shock strength to be similar in magnitude to those in a afterburner, and its already common knowledge the SR-71 RCS spiked big-time when on full afterburners.