Would like to know what the commentary is on that one as its not even remotely close to the same aircraft.

Why aren’t the Iranians showing its landing gear, what’s holding that thing up? How can it be so intact?

Probably because the landing gear is extended, which discredits their claims that it was brought down by an electronic attack.

The thing probably landed itself autonomously when it lost contact with its base and was low on fuel.

Or perhaps not all T/R modules are created equal.

I’m no expert on the subject, but I suspect this is yet another example of folks over-emphasising a particular metric merely because it happens to be easily accessible and quantifiable. See: clock rates for CPUs, megapixels for digital cameras, etc.

Yes it is … like length of the J-20 (length is much less relavent than angles for RCS estimation….if that’s the purpose of that whole debate) and location of compressor faces that gets debated ad-nauseum on this forum.

TR modules can already be built to far outperform anything installed in fighter radars, especially by the US, unfortunately the by-product of higher power output is heat.

It all comes down to the thermal efficiency and heat dissipation of the cooling systems. Arrays with lower TR numbers could have much higher power output per module and better cooling and be much more effective.

Source please. 😉

Apparently you don’t remember claiming such things before, and being wrong about it:

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showpost.php?p=1810147&postcount=524

Actually he was quite right last time he mentioned it and is right again this time.

Spheres are a comparitively AWFUL shape for low RCS, especially vs early warning systems. From a specular reflection standpoint they give a decent sized, uniform return no matter what angle they are being illuminated from.

Surface waves are also able to travel right around a sphere and scatter back to the source radar which can lead to resonance and increase their RCS by over 4 times.

A spherical feature can also betray the stealth of the airframe itself. Surface waves travelling across the aircraft’s skin can wash around the sphere and scatter in random directions. Stealth shaping is about directing waves in predictable directions.

The example that was given to discredit mikoyan1991’s comment was a simplified PO sample showing the difference between the fully exposed surface of some basic shapes.

Below are some physical optics simulations of some glass shapes which are about the same size..

15x15cm Flat Panel glass surface vs x-band

15cm diameter glass Sphere vs x-band

Even with a moderate angle of incidence of 30 degrees, the flat panel has an RCS of 1/10th of the sphere. From the front aspect, with EOTS panels being angled 60 degrees away from the radar source, and 1 panel on each side, its RCS would be around 500 times smaller than a spherical irst around the same size.
To put it into perspective a glass globe the size of the PAK FA IRST would have an RCS 10 times larger than has been stated for the F-22’s total frontal RCS from specular reflection alone.

A facetted aircraft feature which has all of its surface angles consistent with the aircraft’s planform design is hundreds of times a better (lower RCS) solution to a spherical feature. This is why they build stealth aircraft with predictably positioned facets and why missiles are hidden inside stealth aircraft.

0.001 msq to 0.004 RCS for an IRST is not game breaking in itself, but add an IRST here, a bunch of cylindrical pitot tubes and sensors there, some lumpy rivots, exposed radar blockers, canopy frame…etc and it all adds up and all equals miles.

The test device shown in your other post was to be illuminated from the pointy end only, hence the heavy edge treatment on the photo you provided to reduce vertex scattering. Its a low RCS test stand to mount various components on. A cone illuminated from the pointed end is the lowest RCS solid object you can get for specular reflection, from the side, not so much. The spherical shape at the back is for allowing surface waves to fall of in the shadow region.

The US pilot obvious meant the Su-30 has much better view of the frontal hemisphere compaired to any US two seater jet..

thats not the angle of the cockpit in flight though.

The first 2 concepts are way too impracticle . The fighter has a blind spot thanks to its intakes mounted above the cockpit

Not if EODAS combined with an F-35 style HMD gets installed in the thing. Won’t matter where the pilot looks, he will not see any of the airframe.

and that bombers gonna have trouble landing thanks to that mid mounted cockpit

It could just land itself.

Old fighters or not, its still not cheap to maintain and upgrade all those aircraft with remote systems. As a missile they are not LO enough to be effective and would only serve as decoy drones.

Would be cheaper just to develop their own inexpensive MALD. Easier and cheaper to maintain, far easier to deploy.