A F-22 will use datalinks and iirc the Kolchuga/ Vera etc can detect these. The K says its got the greatest range – better than its russian/ czech peers.

That’s not exactly how Kolchuga and Vera works. The concept of RCS reduction hinges that you reflect radar, a form of electromagnetic radiation, away from the transmitting source. However, you know that different frequencies of electromagnetic radiation reflect differently, much like the colors of the rainbow when light passes through a prism. Some bend this way, some bend that way. Same with radar. Stealth is actually a design compromise, you can’t optimize against all wavelengths, you ahve to choose which ones you have to work against. Current “stealth” measures are optimized against X/J band wavelengths, to make it short, they’re optimized against the wavelengths fighters and most SAMs use. But Kolchuga and Vera are designed to work with very long wavelengths, right into the UHF and VHF areas, almost like World War II radar. The problem of this method is that while it can detect a VLO target, the precision isn’t good for use in tracking and fire control purposes. You know they’re there, but you can’t get a lock and fire at them. So again the VLO intruder remains safe.

Other promising developments include passive coherent detection, but I believe the most promising is the development of bistatic and multistatic radar. The concept of stealth is that the plane has to reflect radar away anywhere else except from the source emission. Current radar design is monostatic, meaning both emitter and reciever are in the same station, or the same radar. In bistatic or multistatic design, the emitter and the reciever are not on the same location but different ones. A multistatic network will have, say one emitter, then various receivers located miles away in some pattern. Potentially this can work with any wavelength, and does not preclude those used for precise tracking and fire control.

At a certain range, sure. That’s the point of stealth technology; stealth aircraft like the F-22A or B-2 are NOT invisible, they are just detected at greatly reduced ranges.

In the era of SAMs trying to survive conventional SEAD/DEAD measures, they would be firing near point blank anyway, their fire control radars will only light up in the last moment, right in the most RCS visible aspect of the plane, which is right under the plane. Hence the very time sensitive nature of SEAD work.

How do you know? 1) Do you have official J-10 specs? and 2) How did you (technically) arrive about the sensitivities of the technologies on both platforms?

Even airliners.net sometimes overlooks PS Jobs.

What you’ve described are the most primitive of image features. You really don’t have any experience in this field do you?

And you do? You act as if you know things but you know, even children can tell CGI images and you don’t? The most primitive of aircraft features are among the most ignored. And the fact that you mention airliners.net overlooks PS jobs itself has quite a contradiction, because people can still tell PS jobs to know that airliners.net made mistakes.

If IOC/FOC is irrelevant, 3 regiments reflect airframes in mere testing stages. Even under IOC, the airframe can be severly limited – a2a only, limited integration of weapons, radar modes etc

The no. of parameters are huge.

We don’t know what their standards are. If PLAAF’s origiinal plans is to have a basic air to air model with secondary ground attack functionality, then that criteria is already met. I don’t see how these 3 regiments reflect testing stages because these regiments and their headquarters are not meant for testing and do not have the equipment for this sort of testing and monitoring. There are distinct places in China for this, the factory airbase in Chengdu, the CFTC for flight testing, the FTTC for training and tactical development. When they reach the regiments, we do expect the kind of testing they do involve exercises, wargames, and under operational condition, not basic flight testing, avionics and weapons integration.

I repeat – the scope of the discussion, which may or may not reflect actual events on the ground, is restricted to the amount of information available and the validity of that information. It is perfectly fine to speculate about something given some observations but to use that as a point to end an argument “We know J-10 is in full service, LCA is not”, is simply not correct. I’m not even saying that this thread should make any sense (or remain open) but am simply pointing out the flaw in the mentioned logic.

I could similarly point to the National Geographic video and claim that “The Tejas is almost in active service”. But since we are already aware of a lot of details and that it goes much deeper than that, we also know that the said statement is not at all accurate. No one can draw certain conclusions using limited information.

I don’t know what kind of obfusication you’re trying to do, but three regiments of J-10 in official PLAAF insignia, colors and unit numbers, do mean considerable progress against 2 demonstrator and 1 or 2 prototypes and you don’t even have your radar on yet. Somehow you and matt here don’t think that regiments of planes carrying official PLAAF unit numbers, camouflage, insignia do not constitute active service sounds common sense ridiculous to me. By this criteria, the entire PLAAF must not have a single plane operational, and the entire fleet must be a testing field.

I’d trade JDAMS for S-300s all day :diablo: BTW I’d think a JDAM would be way easier to hit than say a HARM. None of them are stealthy. They need to make a stealthy SDB.

I would prefer HARM for anti SAM tasks than any JDAM or JASSM. We just wonder how many JDAMs never truly hit targets in Serbia, just decoys or purported targets that weren’t. Using GPS munitions against SAM sites suggest you need an intel network that is up to date by 15 to 30 minutes, because that is how fast (actually faster) a SAM battery at the max, can haul down its antenna, start the engine, and drive away into a new location, while you drop a bomb on the old now empty, location. These SAMs and their radars got wheels you know, and furthermore, it’s not like a stationary shelter where everything is together in one place. The missiles, the fire control radar, even and the search radar are all in seperate trucks, and taking out the search radar for one thing, does not nullify the fire control radar, and all these batteries work together like a network, so one compensates for the other. So long as one fire control radar is on the ground, it can guide missiles from seperately located batteries, where each set of cannisters are being driven around in their own set of wheels.

HARM lets you target SAM radars at the immediete opportunity when they light up. You don’t need to find out their location by GPS and input them, they just let go and seek the targets autonomously.

WRONG. Your MiG-23 example does not hold.

First your first generation MiG-23 are not prototypes, but are actual service planes. Thus the planes were originally made to that specification. These planes cannot be fitted with the AL-31F.

Second, MiG-23s with the R-29 had extensive rear end changes and belong to the second generation. These engines are much more closer to the AL-31F in dimension, thrust and airflow intake.

You quoting technical texts are completely hypocritical. Inlets only account for the wide variety of engine operating conditions as exactly said. It is not a device used, and never was it mentioned in the text, that it can be used to compensate for engine changes. As a matter of fact, the variable ramp behavior has to be changed again for a new engine, which means an additional level of testing and design added to the engine change.

You want to refer to technical texts when you are unable to answer the question what is the difference between MOCKUP, PROTOTYPE and DEMONSTRATOR? Why don’t you research on that, hypocrite.

You never answered the question directly do you? You never think that changing an engine with a different diameter would result in changing the dimensions and design of the air tunnel itself. When the F-14 changed to the GE F110, there where modifications throughout the entire duct. Simiply said, what works for the TF30 does not work for the F110. You failed to account that the ramps and inlets are also designed for one particular engine and these too have to change when you have a different engine. A variable inlet and ramp is designed to account for that particular engine which has to operate in a variety of speeds, altitudes, and RPM states. They are very highly tuned devices, and you have to change their design and behavior when you have a different engine because the operating range and conditions becomes a different set of bananas.

And these are still engines within the same class. Not like 6600kg vs. 12,500kg.

You keep bringing up the MiG-23 as an example when it’s already shown its a fallacy. The first generation and the second generation of MiG-23s feature a newly designed rear end. Can you explain to me why the AL-31F will not fit on the first generation of MiG-23s with 9700kg thrust engines? Huh?

You seem to think that you can take the same tunnel, put a different engine on it, and use the variable ramp to compensate for the airflow differences? You really are a fool.

And where is your empirical proof that the WP-13 J-10 prototype exists? Huh? After all these years, can’t find one?

Latest Tejas video – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJk1kmwlQnI

bring_it_on – Go here – http://rapidshare.de/files/34789709/tejas-radiance.pdf.html

From the PoV of one who actually did advanced Computer Graphics and Pattern recognition at a graduate level, I certainly do not think that better done PS jobs are easily identifiable. Perhaps others who do this professionally can give their perspective?

And from one who has extensively worked in photography, PS jobs are indeed identifiable if you actually put some time trying to analyze them. There are differences, certain pattern inconsistencies around borders, for example. Inconsistencies among light and shadow is one of the easiest ways to detect PS jobs because the hoaxer often do not know the exact position of the sun and the weather condition of the background. A CGI image is often too sharp, light and shading not consistent with the background. Blurring does not fix this. Another is CGI artists are not very well versed in technical details of the aircraft. They will often, in fact, always, forget tiny details like warning lights, fuel ports, antenna, access panels, rivets. And we are talking of the simpler things, and not into the esoteric like understanding the PLAAF’s arcane unit numbers. All this is just the tip of the iceberg.

So yeah, your POV is bunk. We do know which among the J-10 images—among many others—are fan made with CGI and which ones are real because we actually take the time to sort them out.

You have possible proof of the J-10 being operational. What you do not have is certain and indisputable proof. What would the latter perhaps constitue?

Sure you have a point. There is a lot of documentation that you want to require. But the Chinese do not require to submit to you or this board. You are not the Judge and Jury to determine what is operational or not. The PLAAF brass is. The fact that the ills of the LCA is much better documented shows a much greater appreciation for transparency but tells you zilch about the J-10’s operational status because it has no real bearing. Read below why using examples is a logic fallacy.

Whether or not its IOC or FOC, the bottomline remains that at least 3 regiments are out there, already supplied to at least two operational regiments. We do know from patterns in the way the PLAAF operates, that IOC usually means the planes are just in the FTTC, which stands for Flight Test and Training Center. This is the place, when the J-10s are operating under the 13th Trials Regiment, that they are under IOC status. When the planes go beyond the FTTC, and large orders for engine are made, that suggest something else, that whatever the Chinese requirements are, the J-10 has left one stage, and entered into another, entering into a real PLAAF air division.

Don’t compare the Eurofighter status. Comparison by another example is considered a logical fallacy in every debate lesson because you do not factor that the example will always have some differences that will create a different outcome. This is not to mention you can always get an example that shows to the contrary, and the fact that you *choose* examples to make a point, means that the selection of the example itself is already biased. Scientific observation to prove or disprove do not support comparison by example as being valid either for the same reasons.