Both visible and Infrared wavelengths are greatly attenuated by cloud, but ‘yes’ thick cloud can effectively mask an aircraft’s presence from IR sensors altogether.
I don’t think it’s really a question of whether clouds can be used to hide from IR sensors, but rather a question of how best to exploit this fact in a tactical scenario.
Cloud formation occurs almost exclusively in the troposphere which in temperate regions falls below the optimum cruise altitude of most modern fighters, and at a far lower altitude than is advantageous for BVR combat. At high altitude under co-altitude or look-up conditions against a cool uniform background IR sensors are operating in near ideal conditions. And under these conditions it’s possible for a modern LWIR sensor to achieve long range detection of even relatively cool targets such as a subsonic fighter flying without reheat. Of course, aircraft can still fly at lower altitudes to take advantage of the available cloud cover to mask their approach from high flying fighters, but in doing so they face being at a massive energy disadvantage against their higher flying adversary.
In many situations stealth aircraft may be able to exploit cloud cover at low altitude to hide from IR sensors in much the same way that aircraft with conventional radar signatures fly at treetop level using terrain to hide from radar. But unlike terrain features which are static and predictable features clouds are a dynamic weather phenomena which will be moving, forming, and dissipating in a fairly unpredictable manner, sometimes over very short periods of time. For aircraft which use terrain to mask their presence from radar the use of terrain databases allows an optimal route to be planned before a mission or even dynamically within a mission, but to exploit available cloud cover may require mapping of cloud position/density and calculation of an optimal course in real-time.
Assuming that such a facility is available the problem is complicated further for a stealth aircraft as the route required to stay hidden by cloud cover must be coordinated with that required to remain outside of the threat envelope of enemy radar. Stealth aircraft penetrating an enemy IADS are designed to operate within the constraints imposed by radar threat avoidance, flying at specific altitudes within carefully calculated corridors through radar coverage and avoiding large course deviations which require banking beyond a certain angle towards threats. An aircraft may need to make fairly large course deviations simply to stay hidden by cloud cover and so there is a great possibility that those aims will conflict with one another.
And to add one final consideration, just as enemy electro-optical sensors are affected by cloud so to are the aircraft’s own sensors. This will mean that for aircraft operating under strict EMCON conditions and relying on electro-optical sensors, the use of cloud cover to conceal the aircraft’s approach may come at the expense of being blind against the very same threats the aircraft is attempting to conceal itself from.
😀 great answer
may be stealth IR is not very practical to aircraft
how about stealth IR for ground APC , tank and SAM battery ?
EX : black fox
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogqAQrvS6To
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYsidAXQpus
Adaptiv IR
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pftna34TbJU
http://www.svvn.vn/upload/20080804/nhay%20du.jpg
it will be a night mare for future fighter doing close air support dont you think 😎
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