XB-70[USER=”43812″]moon_light[/USER] – The J-10 has an IRST. The newer variants are believed to have an AESA as well.
XB-70How can frequency hopping be slower when it is acting while DRFM is reacting?.
It’s not. DRFM is a technique for digitally creating and/or processing a modulated, pulsed waveform. Frequency hopping (and also sometimes phase shift keying) are the modulation techniques used. Different things.
XB-70[USER=”76365″]RALL[/USER] – He has the most victories, yes. But the most famous is probably Richthofen. Even people who don’t know who that is have generally heard of the Red Baron. But the point you make is fine. Sensors, stealth and communications have become the big three.
XB-70I doubt they will fly a Su-57 with two Izd 30’s before MAKS. Might even be more like the 4th quarter…give around 2 years to flight test an engine.
XB-70These recent posts stray pretty far from the thread topic and cross into morals and policy. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a section on this forum to air such things? We could call it “General Discussion” and separate it from the aviation forum section.
[USER=”40269″]FBW[/USER] – Hmmm… That is a very interesting objection. I mean, This is a Military Aviation Forum! It has to do with defense. And, I really don’t see how you can disagree, defense is governed by policy. At the end of the day, it is policy that makes a defense project worth it. Pretty much all of them today experience substantial cost overruns and schedule delays, but they are deemed to be worth it for policy objectives such as jobs, sovereignty, growing the technical and industrial base, national prestige, etc. Nations do that. Right now on the Tejas thread, people are going back and forth over whether the Indians should abandon the project to quickly obtain modern fighters to mothball the old Migs, or to finish the program to develop the technical-industrial base. That is essentially an argument over two different policy objectives! See? Nobody else is separating policy from the discussion. Why? Because it can’t be done. Now if “socialism” and “evil people” are trigger words, then I will choose my wording more carefully. But I can’t promise more.
[USER=”1724″]djcross[/USER] – No, that is a very poor example of a…
lack of understanding of “deterrence”.
I mean, is China or anyone bombing Japan or South Korea right now? Threatening to invade them? No? Well then, I think that rests my case that their legacy aircraft provides adequate deterrence right now. And this is exactly what I stated with the above quote of mine: “
If all you need is a deterrence function then a good legacy platform will do well enough. This will be the case for the next 10-12 years still.”
And, no, I never said or suggested that one would only obtain a stealth aircraft if they intended aggression. I only said they don’t need one right now for defense. As you are certainly aware, people and nations also set aside funding, resources, and such not just for current needs but to meet future needs. These are called investments. As I have already stated, the deterrent potential of legacy aircraft will eventually become degraded as more 5th gen designs proliferate. I estimate around 10-12 years. Japan buying F-35s is an investment to meet future needs. Germany and France getting started on a 6th gen is the same (a longer term investment).
I’m sorry, but you read all of that into my statements all on your own!
XB-70…it’s a bit funny to see them applying socialism to their Defense industry.
Why? All countries operate their defense apparatus off of a socialist system. There is a lot of libertarian theory out there on how to operate defense purely off of a private property based market process, nevertheless the fact is that all nations currently use something of a “from each according to their ability and to each according to their need” approach. (This is true with draft/selective service, setting budgets, who gets contracts, etc.) It’s a throwback from mankind’s tribal beginnings.
When you or your kids are not in the line its so much easy to dust-off the causality rates.
You don’t understand deterrence. As I said, if you are looking to start a conflict then you need stealth assets to avoid casualties. If you just want to provide enough punch back so that nobody attacks you (deterrence) because it would be financially prohibitive for them to do so, or cause them too many casualties, or be political suicide, or (win or lose) the outcome would leave that power vulnerable to other nations, etc. then there are no casualties. They don’t attack you!
So much that when French Strategic forces simulates a long range strike, the return leg is… not even part to the training mission.
God forbid that ever happen, but should it then there won’t be a lot of homes to come back to. And some that do return home will just watch their families die a slow death. Thankfully, deterrence seems to work. Even evil people fear their own death.
XB-70If electronics are modernized, current 4th gen could still be potent assets with the right combination of UCAV and standoff weapons. Sure a single platform will not be enough and the future leans towards of a “system of system” more than the single silver bullet that wins against everything. In that context an up to date 4th gen fighter supported by other stealth assets like UCAV might prove enough for quite some times. Not the panacea but still, if it is used well with 6th gen electronics it could do the trick (again with other specialized platform when required).
Also the F15 still brings a lot with its massive carrying abilities and good range. With the right electronics it could still be a very capable aircraft for many years to come and complement well F35 and F22 with their small internal weaponery.
I agree with this. Not every operational requirement will need stealth. Further, it’s not just the electronics that can be modernized to keep them useful. Don’t forget about the weapons!
XB-70As stated before there is ample room for both planes in Germany. The FCAS and the F-35 are not mutually exclusive unless in the mouth of the most radicals sparking the defense debate as if it was a wheat field. They don’t care of the sacrifice that their position will impair on those that invariably will stay behind: they would rather burn it to the ground no matter the consequences.
Not really. The main strengths of the F-35 are its intelligence gathering and coordination abilities and then its stealth – enabling one to safely strike targets in protected airspace. As the Germans are not as involved with bombing militants and failed dictators all over the world, they don’t need the strike capability so much right now. The intelligence and coordination would be useful. But I guess they decided to give their own industry some protection and long term funding so that they can make their (joint) FCAS.
I like the F-35. Nevertheless, the article does oversell it. Right now, if you want to blast the heck out of someone then you need stealth assets. If all you need is a deterrence function then a good legacy platform will do well enough. This will be the case for the next 10-12 years still.
XB-70[USER=”39911″]TomcatViP[/USER] – It’s “Do not go gentle into that good night” and “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
[USER=”15685″]Sintra[/USER] – Definitely a clean sheet. It makes about as much sense to try to power a 2040s era fighter with a souped up M88 as it does to try to power a Raptor with a souped up Rolls Royce Nene. A lot of new innovations are going to be made in that time.
XB-70I’d take the size comparisons of the two Chinese designs with a grain of salt. They might be accurate. But at the same time, the FC-31 engine exhausts and tail stinger are mounted considerably forward than what is shown in the picture. So I have to question the attention to detail.
XB-70I gotta say that I’m with Tomcat. There doesn’t appear to be any type of canopy on those things (no discernable glare whatsoever). Just an open cannister with something in it. The resolution isn’t enough to tell what it is. I haven’t been able to find any other Sukhoi images with it so good find.
XB-70I’m going to take the position that RR’s IP from their current civilian high bypass engine offerings and the Advance3 core in development is going to be worth a lot more to them than a 1980s design if the UK does in fact go down the Tempest route. RR isn’t a company hurting for technical knowhow.
XB-70The crazy Chinese are putting green lights on the port side of the aircraft! I mean, if you want to add other lights besides the flashing red navigation light then fine – but not green! I had wondered what those things on the vertical tail was though. Now I know.
XB-70The basic components and functionality of an IRST system remains similar regardless of whether it’s on a missile or an aircraft.
[USER=”77048″]St. John[/USER] – 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.
It just doesn’t seem to follow the basic stealth principle of sweeping back surfaces in the same direction.
There is no such principle. Swept back surfaces are frequently used because a dart shape is good for high velocity aerodynamics. Sure, it also brings with it the bonus of reduced RCS from the very front – BUT at the price of massively increased RCS along the direction of the sweep! And you either accept that (and with a disposable missile you will!), or you utilize a ton of edge treatment to make designs like the B-2 possess all aspect stealth. It really makes no sense at all to make comparisons to a missile, sorry!
I’ll be surprised if the frontal RCS is less than 0.01m^2, or even 0.05m^2 really.
That’s a perfectly valid opinion. But, since realistic RCS contribution from their hemispherical surfaces will be something only like one fiftieth (and it is definitely possible to go even lower – but cost will increase considerably) of that of the theoretical perfect conductor value, it isn’t going to be the IRST that kills them.
But only benefit from faceted IRST is drag.
[USER=”22168″]Krivakapa[/USER] – That’s not true. They could drop the RCS even more with faceted surfaces. The reason why they kept a spherical IRST is simple – and now obvious – they had to use such surfaces anyways. They are incorporating DIRCMs into their design. And a faceted dome would greatly increase refractive losses and would interfere with beam steering. I can understand the puzzlement with their IRST before they began flying the DIRCMs, but not now. They traded a tiny bit of RCS (realistically on the order of 0.000X) for the added countermeasure capability.
XB-70An IIR AAM essentially has an IRST system at the front too, although far smaller, and external AAMs are regarded as a no-no for stealth.
[USER=”77048″]St. John[/USER] – 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.
Why didn’t the F-35 just go for a glass sphere for the EOTS?
Because Lockmart was required by contract to take RCS even lower. First you got to take care of the big things – eliminate strong reflectors in your surface material or deeply treat them, design the airframe so that classic corner reflectors such as orthogonal wing-fuselage junction and straight vertical tail are eliminated, deeply bury the engine so that there is no appreciable reflection from blades, burner bars and such, treat the inlet and outlet to the engine, avoid sharp edges which strongly tend to release creeping waves or treat them heavily, and take care of gaps (using shaping and filler) to keep surface creeping waves inside your (attenuating) surface, and use a quality RAM coat to cover everything (you need the thin-film layers to cover the cockpit and other openings).
After such things, if you got to still go lower then you have to work at the small things – refine your mostly non-reflecting surfaces (such as the F-35’s IRST), improve RAS usage, bury strong reflectors (such as the engine) even deeper, develop a stronger absorbent surface coat, etc. 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.
More than one order of magnitude error for the RCS average value seems a lot if one takes Russian estimations as valid (ca. 30 times less RCS for a VLO model than a conventional plane) but I have no way of assessing this.
[USER=”77292″]LMFS[/USER] – I think Russian designers can guess the RCS of American fighters fairly accurately with regards to the lowest frequencies only – and vice versa. At that point it becomes safe to assume that the absorbent properties of RAM becomes negligible, and the same thing for any tweaking of your reflective layer by RAS. Once one starts talking about the L band and lower the wavelength is six inches or greater. That makes RAS techniques such as conductivity gradients and re-entrant angles difficult to implement and it also opens up a lot more opportunities for Mie scattering.
[USER=”77174″]panzerfeist1[/USER] – Good memory! I had remembered that had read another source article hinting at a RCS on the order of 0.00XdBsm but couldn’t quite remember where.
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