At the time of the ATF competition, Northrop was running the B-2A development program. They had major cost overruns, schedule slips and the B-2A never met its RCS requirement until the USAF relaxed the requirement. Even today (15 years later), B-2A has major RCS problems with cracks in the scrim tape they use to hide panel joints.

On the other hand, Lockheed was running the F-117A program. They met the target cost, delivered on schedule and met their RCS requirements.

It really doesn’t make sense to claim that the USAF would chose the inferior product for their premier air dominance fighter. Next you’ll be claiming Michael Schumacher was forced to drive a Ferrari at the Monaco Grand Prix instead of his beloved Yugo. :rolleyes:

that’s been solved by the alternate high frequency material.

Isn’t that sweet. I love your attitude urmomma158, we need more of you out there to give us all a reality check with those airburst nukes. I go back on my last post, you should post more often and impart your wisdom to us. 🙂

i was just kidding and although it wouldn’t be used it works a nuke airbursted at 300ft will fry everything that runs on electricity over the conttinental US.

THAAD is alos showing great potential for intercepting ICBM’S!!!!!

THAAD, whose prime contractor is Lockheed Martin, is mainly designed to intercept short- and medium-range ballistic missiles as they transition from the midcourse phase of flight to the terminal phase, but Driessnack indicated a year ago that the system also would be capable against longer-range targets, including intercontinental ballistic missiles (DAILY, Aug. 20, 2004).

http://www.aviationnow.com/avnow/search/autosuggest.jsp?docid=555349&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aviationnow.com%2Favnow%2Fnews%2Fchannel_aerospacedaily_story.jsp%3Fview%3Dstory%26id%3Dnews%2FTHAAD08185.xml

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. – U.S. missile defense developers have discovered that the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system, designed to destroy short- and medium-range ballistic missiles in their final stages of flight, will also be capable of shooting down longer-range targets.

At the seventh annual space and missile defense conference here, Army Col. Charles Driessnack, THAAD’s program manager, said in a speech late Aug. 18 and at a press briefing Aug. 19 that recent tests of the system’s Raytheon-built radar have shown that THAAD will have a “residual” capability against intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

“We weren’t planning to have the ICBM capability,” but the radar is “outperforming what we thought it was supposed to do,” Driessnack said.

http://www.aviationnow.com/avnow/search/autosuggest.jsp?docid=366840&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aviationnow.com%2Favnow%2Fnews%2Fchannel_aerospacedaily_story.jsp%3Fview%3Dstory%26id%3Dnews%2Ftha08204.xml

I love aviation week they give you info even the leading competitors don’t(Jane’s,Globalsecurity,etc etc etc) offer. 😀

IMHO the world is way too much focused on stealth. With the next generation of data linked radars and IRST, stealth is likely to be to a good degree compromised. Having said that, here is what I think the chinese should build:

1. Delta winged
2. Canards not only angle but also swing and blend into the wing
3. two WS-10A derivatives with less bypass ratio
4. Engine intakes on top and blending on the upper surface of the wing /fuselage area
5. Internal carriage of three SD-10s and two semi-external short range AAMs
6. The overall design and AOA of wings high focusing on less drag (thus inevitably less dogfight maneuverability) and more speed.
7. Large wing surface area to weight ratio
8. Thrust vectoring
9. Best IRST Possible
10. RAM type anti AMRAAM missiles 😀 (2-4 small and slender)
11. Small calibre gatling type guns mated to AESA radar (ammo needle like)
12. Semi-space suite for above 60,000 combat ceiling
13. Some beautiful chinese hot chick cum fighter pilot serving me some ice cool lemonade and telling me what a great military strategist I am while I nap under the wings of my dragon flanker.
14. A new age DSI where the bumps adjust themselves (protrude out or blend in) so that the 1.8 mach limit does not apply
15. Man machine interface using bionic and bio electric architecture
16. Cockpit having the pilot in a laid back position
17. Small rocket at the back (like the original mirages) to scoot when needed (at least a short distance to gain / not lose distance too fast on a AMRAAM). Something like a flanker sting
18. A large detachable back end that separates from the aircraft to form a replica of the radar signal of the aircraft.
19. More later.

PLA-MKII

Wow you seem like real expert. :rolleyes: Did you know IRST’s are degraded by bad weather and there are aircraft that can manilpulate the weather to their own selection. The current cream of the crop IR missile has a range much shorter than that of a radar guided one. Datalkinked radars…They already do that(IADS and command and control centers). Unless you’re talking of all radars looking in the same spot true that would help but how do you know where the aircraft is in all that clutter.

they said that baseline Flanker is 30% more agile to F-15A.
so if Su-35>Su-30MKI>Su-27. so alteast 50% more agility is reasonable guess for Super Flanker over other 4th generation fighters.

So what it’s all about BVR engagements for the Raptor. The Raptor is much more maneuverable than the teen series fighters, way more. It can engage and disengage at will so even if it runs out of amraams it can fly away and you’ll never catch it or detect it for that matter. Can we please get back to the topic people.