Every fighter including the F-35 will be detected today. The question is just at what distance it will happen. But much more important is the distance something can be tracked by a weapons-sensor. To find something is much less demanding than to generate a final killing solution. Every active jammer will reveal your presence, at the moment it starts and it kicks back to you. Whatever is claimed the passive stealth of the F-35 is an advantage. The gains will shrink in the future but it still forces every opponent to field several expensive items to get the desired effect.
This is not true Sens. In Peacetime however, it is true that most system leave a footprint. The vocabulary specifies them as LO in comparison of those qualified as VLO. But you know obviously all this better than me.
In a war scenario, most systems that are able to guess at long range that a LO aircraft is flying in the vincinity will be rendered ineffective thanks to their inherent low power wave firms and physical vulnerability. Other counter weapons will deal with distributed radar sensing.
There is nothing today that says that Stealth will be countered on a significant manner by radar in a tactical war scenario. Just like old GW1, stealth assets will still pass through. It won’t be as much spectacularly “easy” and will certainly requires cooperative packages (hence the 35) in contrary to the single mission bird flown so successfully by the 117, but the end result will be the same.
And that day, you’d better fly one of those LO plane than anything else. But it’s up to you to make your policy insurance even richer… 😉
Maybe I should invest? Let’s call it Senseless, the life insurer for all stubborn pilots… A company endorsed by Sweetman and alike.
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