Ah, one of the non-combat capable ones?

RAM application is the same as combat-capable birds though? They just are not bothering upkeeping it as well?

Interesting photo, shows some of the RAM patch material that’s usually covered by paint. The conductive and possibly magnetic substrate under the matching layer looks iron-based as it seems to be rusting at the cracks.

Apparently this particular F-22 has looked like this for a year and a half now. One of the threads from a blog discussing the issue shows early 2018 photos of the same aircraft exhibiting the same skin damage.

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There could be all sorts of reasons they’ve stopped maintaining the surfaces. Perhaps the unit’s been told to hold out for the new surface treatment developed on the F-35 program.

As a side note, if that damaged section of RAM represents the length of the surface wave suppressing treatments required to prevent diffraction at surface discontinuities, then the canopy frame airgap of the Su-57 is indeed a large RCS issue.

The pod in the pic can look sideways, sure…. At what? The front of weapons leaving the front bay only or the left wing for the fraction of a millisecond they’re in view?

I don’t think it can look backward judging by the possible camera angles.

Nah, this seems to be what I mentioned previously that the Su will start life as a 4.5th gen (from strike perspective) then evolve to 5th gen in that role over time.

[USER=”29017″]ActionJackson[/USER] – I made a stealth thread. Use that. No point talking about the Su-57 on the TFX thread.

Once I can find the articles and pictures I’m after. I’ll still duplicate the posts in the Su-57 thread where relevant though. Threads started by Russian/wannabe posters tend to be magically deleted when some of the more primitive features of the Su are mentioned. The Su-57 thread wasn’t started by a Russian poster so is probably a safer time investment.

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No, ActionJackson. Because, as they have stated, they applied layers of ITO to the glass. And they can tailor the conductivity of that through the thickness and number of layers, as well as the ratio of indium oxide to tin oxide (there is no molecule ITO). Similarly, the conductivity of the carbon fiber shell and the exterior coatings can be tailored by doped conductive particle size and number.

So do you have any actual evidence that they didn’t do any of this? Because I know this is not something you can see. In fact, I would bet you had never thought about it.

Oops forgot to respond to this one while on hols. I’m not so concerned with the canopy leading edge as the mid-canopy frame. The nose surface in front of the canopy is likely to be treated with magnetised, tapered conductivity patches as shown on the f-22 below for creeping wave attenuation (though there’s no evidence Russia has the high accuracy application process seen on the US aircraft, in fact some early manufacturing photos indicate the T-50s application of the patches was random and haphazardly done)

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The canopy itself however, is one big, continuous surface with no signs of variable, sawtooth shaped areas of varying conductivity (post Russian pixie dust claims it does exist in 3,2,1…).

The Su-57 canopy frame has a clear raised protrusion that can be seen in numerous of the aircrafts high res photos. It also has an obvious 5-15mm seal gap right in the middle.

According to a recent test done at a range, an untreated 3mm surface discontinuity on a low RCS ovoid object similar to the canopy, increased the RCS of the test target from -40dbsm to -20dbsm. No small amount.

But let me guess, with all the obvious airgaps, bumps and protrusions , and even with surface waves traversing rubber-like seals, the Russians have still managed to achieve perfect continuous conductivity from front to back of the canopy. Sound credible much… Nah didn’t think so.

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That’s cause they went with a clamshell. With the Su-57 though the front part is a fixed piece. And so there is no gap there and you can design a continuous conduction path. Irrelevant criticism.

You know, a lot of stealth is circuit analysis. I have some doubts about your eyeball’s ability to perceive that. 🙂

Still conductivity difference between aircraft frame and canopy glass. Still a surface discontinuity which will cause a large amount of diffraction and surface wave reflection… Right back towards the emitter.

Supersonic missiles require expensive, supersonic decoys for swarming attacks.