Ummm… who runs News Guard though and what happens if someone sets up an app for detecting dodgy tech companies and stamps a pop-up on their website? What we’re risking here is a rivalry of competing apps and at the end of it, people will still just believe what they believe.

Dr. Snufflebug – Yeah, I’m having forum problems too.

he Japanese firm will move its European headquarters to the Netherlands to avoid customs issues.

They won’t avoid customs issues though, they’ll have plenty when they try export their goods to the UK.

That’s a slightly more downbeat message from the previous one of brexit generated sunny uplands and business utopia!

There are no job losses as a result of this move though and who knows, they might move back if we lower corporation taxes post Brexit.

How much the same? Let me ask you a question. Go search around for images of Lockheed putting F-35’s together and note all the fasteners that have to go into it. Do you believe that you could substitute a different fastener that still fits snug and it would be perfectly fine for RCS, or would it create heaps of impedance discontinuities which will tend to radiate outward like a bunch of low gain antennas, killing your RCS reduction measures? It doesn’t make any sense to compare something designed for stealth with something that wasn’t. Now if you simply want to believe that the Su-57 wasn’t, I’m cool with that opinion.

The problem is that if the Su-57 IRST doesn’t reflect RF, it has problems and if it does then it still has problems. The F-35 system is shaped to deflect RF that is reflected, it also doesn’t have a rim around it that is perpendicular to the direction of travel. RAM can do so much, but if RAM did everything, then stealth aircraft wouldn’t be shaped as they are. And yes, I’m aware that swept surfaces emit strongly at a given angle of approach, but the job of sensors and C4ISR is to make sure you avoid that angle of approach and approach from the front.

I honestly don’t understand why you are trying to make a comparison to air to air missiles – which aren’t even designed with stealth in mind. AAMs also have an open cavity in the rear, sharp edges on the stabilizers with no edge treatment, and the stabilizers are darn near perfect corner reflectors due to their orientation. And then you get additional corner reflectors out of pylon and wing interactions with the missile. Now a designer could – could – mitigate some of these. But nobody is going to actually do much in the way of mitigation because it is a waste to spend the money to stealth rate something that is used once and junked

The basic components and functionality of an IRST system remains similar regardless of whether it’s on a missile or an aircraft. The leading edges of missiles are also thin and swept back away from the forward direction. The rim of the Su-57’s IRST points straight forwards, and you would get interactions between that and the body. It just doesn’t seem to follow the basic stealth principle of sweeping back surfaces in the same direction.

You do realize that it is two completely separate things to say that the Su-57 will have a RCS equal to the F-35 and say that the Su-57 will have a RCS several hundred times smaller than a legacy fighter, right? The latter will turn out to be true, the former won’t.

I’ll be surprised if the frontal RCS is less than 0.01m^2, or even 0.05m^2 really.

I’m unaware of any, but some systems do have targeting capability. I think it’s a valid system but I’m questioning the incorporated design.

I think people on both sides can be accused of that.