If a LLLTV could be used on a night with a full moon from the ground looking up for a black aircraft against the night sky, the moonlight would not likely strike the underside and the moonlight that did strike the upper surface of the aircraft would not be visible from the ground. As I said before LLLTV is daylight only. It is not night vision capable.

Garry, with all due respect, the lighter sky during fullmoon (or nearly fullmoon) with a relative clear sky should be just enough to make the silhoutte of the F-117 visible from below. That depends on the right position of the SAM site and the plane to the moon, but that is the most logical reason, that all circumstances came together and that killed the F-117.

Not stealth by today’s standards but they certainly did more than just the iron ball paint to reduce the RCS. The reason for the chine clear to the nose? Smaller RCS than a cylindrical fuselage. Someone’s bound to say “it makes it more streamlined” when in actuality it LOST speed because of it. Also the entire outer edge of the wing (and much of the chine) is made up of RAM triangles inserted into the structure.

They did as much stealth as they needed at the time the plane was developed. The speed and the reduced RCS was enough to make the plane practically untouchable for all the air defense systems then in use.

And the same is true for current stealth fighters. They are not undetectable, however they are so hard to detect, that air defenses become virtually useless, or much less effective.

Good move. Hope they don´´t come back.

I suppose the F-22 is somewhat more agile than vanilla Su-27 in certain aspects, thanks to brute power and TVC. Yet it still should have problem with disturbed airflow, especially when taking US-engine technology and S-shaped ducts into account. And I still believe that Raptor is less agile than a TVC-ed Flanker. I cannot remember dogfights as its primary role, anyway.

That could very much depend on the speed of the aircraft. At low speeds I would also think that the Flanker with TVC shoudl have the edge. With increasing speed however, the F-22 could turn the table.

Nearly all new fighter designs have put much emphasis on an increased manouverability at high subsonic and low supersonic speeds. Even EF without TVC is said to excel over the SU-27 in the regime.

It depends on what we call *more stealthy*. Is it an absolute RCS value or is it a ratio of RCS value of a comparable size target to a nominal RCS value of stealth target? For the former, the F-117 is still better than B-2A, for the latter the B-2A is far more advanced.

Probably, as the B-2 is much larger then the F-117. The F-22 on the other hand, is not of a comparable size, so it could be as steathy or even more stealthy then the F-117.