The Defense Ministry is setting its sights on making the F-35 joint strike fighter the Air Self-Defense Force’s next mainstay combat jet after giving up a plan to buy more F-2s, sources said Sunday.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20101108a3.html

The ministry plans to list the procurement costs for the next-generation jet in its budget request for fiscal 2012.

The ministry, which is trying to update its fighter jet fleet, was planning to retool its F-15 Eagles and buy more F-2s as a stopgap measure, given the delay in the development of the F-35, a fifth-generation stealth jet capable of flying at supersonic speeds, and its climbing price tag.

But the ministry has determined that procuring the less-functional F-2 would be unwise in terms of deterrent capability and cost.

Since China has been mass-producing its own fighter planes, which are comparable to the F-15, and is also seeking to develop a next-generation aircraft of its own, the ministry is looking to purchase about 40 F-35s or other fifth-generation fighters, they said.

I doesn’t the F-2 cost as much as the F-35? Wouldn’t it be amazing if the Japanese bought F-15Se + F35 or T-50+ F-35?

Saying the curves arnt important on the B-2 = curves arnt important. Esp since the B-2 is all curves.

So telling me that continuous curvature has absolutely nothing to do with stealth is a rational and common sense response? especially when its the world versus you.

This is exactly the point.. I want to debate with someone who has clue and does exhibit at least rational and critical thinking, not only spits out whole pages of links I have read years ago. When I’m raising doubts, I want logical explanations, not links to globalsecurity articles.

Here to my brief reaction:
– If you have planform alignment, you try to concentrate the radar return to few peaks at relatively discrete angles. At these angles, the return signal is most likely amplified since it bounces back from several edges at once. That would mean that at these angles the stealth aircraft most likely has much higher RCS than a conventional design without planform alignment. This is a trade-off you pay for having lower RCS at other angles

– the absolute value of RCS of the F-22 might be lower than the one of the F-117 – still it doesn’t bring proof that curved shape is superior to faceted design. There is much more to stealth than just shape and you know it – material used, assembly process, production tolerances, RAM type etc. If you say that every protruding rivet can spoil your RCS, then why it’s so hard to grasp that a series F-22 is most likely to exhibit lower RCS value than 25 years older F-117 of which each unit represents more or less custom-made aircraft (there never was a serious F-117 production line to speak of). I still claim that an F-117 assembled using modern techniques, made of up-to-date materials, with tolerances approaching those of the F-22 would exhibit better stealth characteristics than F-22A, for the reason listed before..

– if Raptor’s fuselage and canopy have sloping sides, then it means you got rid of a right angle when looking from front. So far so good. You have also seemingly reduced the aircraft’s lateral RCS because when illluminated from a side, it would most likely reflect the energy in different direction. But what noone tells you is that you have not really reduced its RCS, you have only shifted it to different angles/frequencies just like you shift a natural frequency of a structure by adding a strenghtening rib. The outcome is that you might have improved stealthiness in your chosen band but you might have spoiled it in other band(s) – but fanboys are not really interested in these “tiny” details, right?

– I would be very much interested in seeing how curves with changing radii scatter radar beams in all directions and exactly how does it help the F-22A which has very much a flat belly. If curves are the way to go, then why is the F-22A’s underside, which is most likely to be illuminated by enemy SAMs, flat like a pancake?

Please, don’t answer with more links as I will not be reading them. If you are not capable of rational and critical consideration of these issues and only want to repeat your “marble-sized” frontal aspect RCS and project this claim onto all angles in all bands, please, restrain from answering.

1. For all your rhetoric you still haven’t demonstrated you know any more than anyone on this board since both of our sources are public domain.

2. Which means every thing you say is speculation. How do I know a complex equation wasn’t copy and pasted from the internet? your definitions can be easily found on goggle.

3.If your only going to speculate on the F-22 versus my public domain info, which is probably the low ball with regard to the F-22 for opsec reasons we can be here all night! You’ve proven nothing, your no better than the rest of us. Unless you have worked on projects that require high security your just a arm chair speculator.

4.If you post something on here opsec I am gonna call the FBI with your IP address LOL.

Brad i see it this way.

1. We live in a democratically elected society where most programs have some form of over site.

2. companies are allowed to compete for a contract.

3. While the system is far from perfect, we have a professional officer core that
will not tolerate the air force buying a plane that has absolutely none of the capabilities that are advertised.

4. Competition ensures that companies work hard to meet weight and performance requirements.

5. In order to accuse Lm and the USAF of buying a plane that meets none of the requirements would imply large scale graft over a wide range of areas. which would include career officers going into future battle know that there planes do not work.

6. While we have some incidents ( see v-22) I cant see the usaf pulling the wool over the entire congress, every single air force officer, turkey, Israel, Britain,Australia, Canadian, and still get away with it. especially after a competition for one of the largest aircraft order in history. BOEING would run screaming to the congress. and people would go to jail.

Mod Edit: Cut and paste from external site removed. This refers.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/f-35-design.htm