MarcellogoDisagree, loitering over enemy territory are what they (VLO aircraft) designed to do
Allow me to change the order of your interesting post to reflect the relative importance of them and also the entity of our disaagrement.
In this first case the disagreement is total, no other VLO fighter was ever tasked to loiter or otherwise staying for a long period of time deep inside of enemy controlled territory: at its best i.e. in the case of F-35, just to penetrate into it, be able to sneak across the enemy AD radar system thank to their low RCS, drop bomb and haul their ass out as fast as they can.
PAK-FA, almost in the case of actual first version, is to be aa AD/ frontal fighter meaning it would stay in its own territory or over the battlefield and act in a defensive role.
J-20 would fly mainly over Pacific Ocean, J-31 is actually just a private venture.
The extra features that the F-22 has in comparison to those other planes, all being designed well after it, are to be directly connected to the higly demanding mission it was originally tasked for.
To be fair, i dont believe any aircraft have 360 degrees stealth , all of them has enormous beam RCS
Enormous, I wouldn’t say , it’ s just larger due to larger relative dimensions, but it’s not that radar range is directly proportional to RCS, so detection range of a 10 sqm target is not 10 times larger than one of 1sqm only.
Real difference is between front and rear aspect: one is the easiest to adress while the other a real pain.
Exaust nozzles are the main problem for this in both the radar than IR but no one other VLO fighter designerhas ever tried to try to resolve it at the expense of other fundamental performances and reliability parameters in the way the F-22 was forced to do by its own specifics.
This for a fundamental reason: the greater RCS of the rear is more than compensated by the reduction of enemy missiles useful range between an head on and a tail-on engagement, so if your intended missions are basically snoop and scoot ones i.e. approach target (ground or air) engage it, broke contact and run away at maximum speed you are quite safe the same. F-22 one WAS NOT SUCH.
There are support stand off jamming too, then there are stand in jamming assets such as MALD-J
https://basicsaboutaerodynamicsandavionics.wordpress.com/2016/03/29/electronic-countermeasure-ecm/
MALD-J entered service in september 2012 i.e. after that F-22 assembly line was removed, packed and sent to Alaska.
In every case what I said in my post still stand: even in such a case F-22 would still have to carry it with itself the same to be able to use it while staying for long periods of time over enemy controlled territory as it was envisaged in its original intended mission pattern.
Despite i have seen not any ufficial statement , I just assume, given the sudden and premature end of F-22 production and the fact that all of them are based in US territory, that such a suicide pattern has been just quietly dropped out but if someone has something more about it, I would be happy.
Now, back to PAK-FA.
MarcellogoWhen you have a better understanding of how the US would fight a conflict with an adversary that has AEW radars that may have some capability at detecting stealth aircraft you will comprehend that achieving air dominance is not as insurmountable as you think.
Stopping production of F-22 at 187 had nothing to do with an increased chance of being detected and everything to do with a high acquisition cost and a near crippling per hour operating cost.
To add to Ozair’s response: the difficulty in upgrading the F-22 software/hardware, the “peace dividend”, and the lack of perceived “near peer” adversaries that Congress saw circa 2002, led to the curtailment of the F-22 program. And Marcellogo, there is a big difference between tracking and targeting. Only fools and the media buy into the “stealth means invisible” slogan. But LO does buy you reduced tracking/targeting and Pk against IADS. The F-22 flat nozzles are not obsolete, that is the best way to dissipate the heat from the exhaust. The LOAN nozzle exhibited by the F-35 has cold stream air, flattening of exhaust plume and active cooling of “feathers’ but if you look at all UCAV and even the B-21, the F-22 method is effective. As far as the Pak-Fa, when we see the definitive engine, with the exhaust nozzle, we will hopefully get a patent release like the one associated with the LOAN nozzle to get an idea of the direction the designers took with IR suppression.
F-22 is actually very cheap to built. even F-15SA and F-16E if built now will cost more than F-22. if F-22 is built in same numbers as F-35 the cost will be nearly half of F-35. no countries brag about things that are not for export.
The problem is not whether you can detect them or not but at what distance ?how well in jamming condition ? , and AEW with low frequency radar isnot thing new ,in fact most if not all AWACs (E-3 , E-2 , A-50 ..etc ) all use low frequency (C band , L band or even lower ) , it is unlikely that Russia , US , china ..etc dont know about the ability of metric frequency radars , they still choose to follow the stealth path and for good reason.
Thank for the replies but seems me that ALL of YOU , someone more , someone less have not payed attention at what I really said.
Ozair for an example talk about achieving Air dominance in general terms, something that has been achieved several times by an air force even before the stealth technology.
I was instead talking about the intended mission pattern of F-22 as a way to achieve air dominance by itself.
FBW say that flat nozzles are not obsolete at all and at the contrary the best way to dissipate heat, something absolutely correct but something that I have not in any way contested in my own post.
Or you consider the phrase ” the extra features that Raptor have when compared to other VLO aircrafts such the 360°degree stealth coverage, flat nozzles…” a way to negate it instead of recognizing this, just relative, superiority?
And yes, I was talking precisely about “others VLO” planes not just LO, so only about PAK-FA, J-21& 31 and F-35, all stealth without any doubt but no one with flat noozlees.
I also tried to explain why this feature is not so important in a plane that is not expected to stay long or even all into enemy controlled territory.
Also the fact that stealth buy you time is absolutely correct, fact is that F-22 was originally intended to spend this time deep into enemy territory loitering in supercruise, without any support and without using not just jammers but even link 16 (that was added in receive only mode when its production was already halted) in order of not giving out any sign of their presence.
In this way can also reply to MiG-31 asking about what distance (hundreds of kilometers inside enemy controlled territory) and about Jamming (only your inboard one as no VLO plane can follow you there) it can happen…
So let me copy and paste again what I have written and even underlined, so maybe we can finally discuss about the real thing:
…the mission pattern F-22 was developed around i.e. I repeat loitering over enemy controlled territory in order to achieve Air dominance is something actually just impossible to even try.
This obviously mean that F-22 can still do anything a normal, LO or VLO plane can actually do i.e. penetrate enemy air space as part of a whole strike package, drop bombs /missiles and haul ass as fast as it can.
Thank also to its own unique features it will probably do it better than most of the others ones but I’m still convinced that the great part of those extra features I had talked about as my post’s exclusive subject would turn out to be just dead weight and huge extra costs spent for nothing.
Yours truly,
Marcello Gusberti
MarcellogoHave you hear nothing in the last TEN years about metric wavelenght radars?
Actual AEW radars can detect and track stealth aircrafts with enough precision to allow ARH missiles to be fired against it, with a way lesser hit ratio than against normal ones but still enought to make the mission pattern F-22 was developed around i.e. I repeat loitering over enemy controlled territory in order to achieve Air dominancejust impossible to even try.
it doesn’t mean that stealth aircraft would became useless, just that the extra features that Raptor have when compared to other VLO aircrafts such the 360°degree stealth coverage, flat nozzles, receve only link 16 and all other that have made its cost and complexity skyrocket are just not .justified at all.
So, if you think it is not like i said, you have just to ask US MoD why they have stopped their production at 187 and plan instead to keep in service 190+ 40 years old F-15C.
MarcellogoAs I said earlier I could possibly find such a concept appealing as an hat trick to counter the airborne high power radars envisaged for the proposed US 6gen fighter (that I found an absolute, complete, total and ludicrous madness by itself anyway).
Imagine submunitions ejected just before the missile enter in Laser effective range and approaching it from different angles: power laser for their own way of working just can’t focus over more than one target so some of them would surely pass.
It would however work in the opposite way than Hopsalot imagined, several ammo for just one target but in the end is a single (although big) missile anyway.
MarcellogoOne doesn’t exclude the others, obviously, so Sukhoi can have envisaged all the things F135 have + the aerosol.
It can also just be some sort of liquid/ powdered substance contained in pressurized canisters and injected in the intake airflow to form a IR capable smokescreen WHEN NEEDED.
Solution used on F-22 were much more complicated and costly because they were intended to complement the 360° capable stealth covering in avoiding the detection of the aircraft itself while loitering at very highe quote over enemy territory.
As the latter turned out to be just a pipe dream such added complexity is just unnecessary.
MarcellogoThere is one thing that the nozzle approach has over the aerosol approach. Once you have it, it doesn’t run out!
for it is worth, I think the only practical application of that would be to bypass some air from the intakes out through the nozzles in a way that masks the IR.
my 2c
My idea is that it will be a mix of both things. some air from intakes would be used as the standard way to cool exhaust.
Just in the case the temperature rise over certain levels some aereosol would be sprayed.
Same would happen during merges and/or after use of afterburners.
In every case to exploit this perceived weakness of the Pak-fa you would need to get into its ownsix o’ clock position at a distance close enought to launch an IR missile, … good luck with that.
MarcellogoFor the little I know prototypes built for State trials phase tend usually to differ not so much one from the other.
As soon as the acceptance trial are passed and the required performances have been demonstrated the focus shift on testing the operative capacities of the plane not on further development of it, so planes for the trialsought to be of a common standard.
In case of T-50 there was from beginning some discrepancies from the usual procedure: it was decided to split the -6 prototype into two items, probably to have one with and the other without complete stealth covering.
5th plane incident and indian request for some further development messed up thing even more, so a further test bed was added and named -7 and -5 & -6-1 was merged into the-5SR item, so I expect the actual -6 to be what Russian intended to have as the former standard.
Now it would be interesting to see if the -8 and -9 would be identical to it or would benefit of some of the innovation foreseen in the 2nd test bed.
Fact that the -10 is stated to be a First Serial plane make me to lean toward the first hipotesys but it can also be that -8 &-9 would be a new standard and they would be used for complete state trials at first and after for developing stage 2 together with -11 and -12 prototypes.
This would explain also because is not foressen a second stage First Serial.
MarcellogoStarstreak work like so
Such a weapon would be good also against airborne lasers.
MarcellogoYou are judging by that? lol.
F**king badass;
http://news.yahoo.com/russian-military-says-special-forces-officer-killed-near-195616224.html
LOOOL Evidently he knows nothing about people like Issam Zahreddine, Leith Abou Fadel, Bashar Jaafari or Bashar Assad himself.
MarcellogoWhat are you on about? That is not Syria… I am talking about the MAWS on the sides of fuselage.
Opps, misunderstood.
They have retired Mi-35 from syria , so i made a wrong assumption.
Marcellogo[QUOTE=Berkut;2302793]Noooooooooooooooooooo. ****, couldnt have figured a better way somehow?
Why?they have now Mi-28N and Ka-52 on theatre, Mi-35, unlike Mi-24P, is redundant now.
MarcellogoThe MiG-31 got its new engine to allow operating it against low-flying threats, like cruise missile, doing so at subsonic speed below medium heights for its look down mode capable radar. Operating there or at speeds over Mach 2, both takes its toll in flight-hours left.
Yes, but it can fly high nd fast as well. The D-30 engines do operate pretty efficient up there.
It doesnt mean it fly supersonic much on regular patrol mission though..
Wonder if they plan to do any upgrade on the Cold section Fan..
You both right, MiG-31 is Mig-25 successor and usually operates in the same, quite unique pattern: they both take off, just climb until they reach a very high quote and then both are able to into a higly supersonic cruise unaittainable by any other plane (until F-22).
Still Mig-31 was developed to operate also against a new kind of threath: low flying cruise misses and, even more deep strikeplanes like Tornado and F111 able to fly in a NAP mode.
So they needed to have good performances even at low-medium quotes, hence the quite radical changes in engines, weaponry and radar system, while the MiG-25 was abandoned even too prematurely.
MarcellogoAdd than russian planes operates from inside Syria with all possible tatgets quite close, so its not for saving fuel, it just not necessary anymore to drop tens of bombs to score an it, neither with unguided ones.
In some cases you can also spot Su-24 i.e. something with a very long range even with internal fuel take off with drops tank and also in many case they land with payload still on.
Im means that often they have not a a predetermined target butare just assigned to a zone and loiter a lot waiting to get a target of opportunity from ground troops or drones.
MarcellogoJets need alot of preparation from centralized airbase to maintain tempo Chopper is like flying cannon. Transporting ammunition of helicopter more easier.
EXactly what I said, so what we are discussing about?
Marcellogo600 Kg for Weapon ?
Even a A2A load of 4x RVV-SD and 4xRVV-MD would be ~ 1200 Kg , Twice that of Normal Load
.
The normal load is the pair of AAM that you see in those senseless comparison f-16net style you sometime see.
no one carry just them, but on the other hand neither the Su-35 on Syria carried 8 missiles.
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