We may get an inkling if the aircraft ever face each other at Red Flag, etc…..

I would certainly love for that to happen! 😉

Anything’s possible, but I’d be a fool to assume that this was in fact the case, until it had been demonstrated. Also, when you use the word tech, you have to remember that it’s not an apples to apples comparison. It’s 2011, and no one has deployed an aircraft as stealthy as the US had flying in the late 70s, so why would I assume that some short cut had been discovered to leap frog US designs?

No one has tried until now because it was cost-prohibitive or unnecessary.

It won’t ever be demonstrated, so don’t hold your breath.

Western engineers have said shaping is where most of the RCS reduction is achieved, and then materials and RAM help further reduce it. I’m gonna have to go with the folks that have designed aircraft that are in service, over those that are just joining the party.

You would be a fool to believe that the ones joining the party could not have possibly found a different, better method given that they had more advanced tools to do it (hence 1990s vs 2000s tech).

Shouldn’t the reverse be the case? An unstealthy shape can use all the RAM in the world but would likely have a bigger RCS than astealthy shape with no RAM. The YB-49 was relatively difficult to detect on radar though this was really an unintended effect of its design.

What do you know about the PAK-FA shape (no really, what?)? Have you been doing wind-tunnel testing with it? What is your secondary education in? Are you an aviation engineer? Have you work for an aviation engineering department that worked on stealth aircraft at any company?

It looks nothing like a Flanker to me, bar the placement of the engines.

I see all of the edge alignment, profiling, etc – that belongs in a stealthy airframe. The details are impossible to talk about.

Shaping is the foremost concern, followed by materials and RAM, if you’re wanting to be VLO.

Yeah, you’d know better than even a single aviation engineer.. :rolleyes:
…..not…

What are good combat radii for the Su-24?

I’ve seen numbers quoted at half of what you are proposing it must be (if they could easily reach Tbilisi).

Are those full sweeps backwards?

LO MAC might have had it all wrong, but I could swear the wings went back even farther 😉

Is that full sweep back?

I did think that the supposed Su-24M2 photo looked suspect.. no way would a Russian fixed-wing cockpit be anything but light blue 😉

I did think that I saw the cockpit somewhere, just didn’t think Ka-52.

One of the Su-24M2 in service I suppose.

Su-34 (above) doesn’t look like its behind the Su-24M2 in any way..