Looks can be deceiving. If you look at some other pictures carefully, you would notice that unlike the Flanker, the engine nacelles are “branched off” from the centre fuselage immediately aft of the cockpit, giving an illusion that the inlet ducts are far from being parallel. But it really was the result of careful area-ruling to reduce supersonic drag.

OTOH, the lower fuselage tells a different story–two largely parallel inlet ducts a la the Flanker. Given that the centre fuselage between the lower engine nacelles are not flush at the bottom and has to accommodate for weapons bay, there is **no way** that the inlet ducts has any room for turning.

Lets just put the S-duct issue to rest once and for all, shall we?

They may have internal structures that are similar shaped to S-ducts. Or maybe they use a blocker. I’m sure Sukhoi knows about the well known stealth concerns surrounding the inlets of fighter aircraft- after all the Su-47 did have S-ducts. But all will be revealed in time, so all we can do for now is speculate until we have better info.

thats twice you posted about bragg cells on this thread
you do realise rafale doesnt have this tech or are you just mixing up your dreams and reality again

like the fa-18, f-35 the f-22 uses the radar antenna for jamming, although they dont have a separate transmitting jammer like the fa-18
the us use offboard jamming for the f-22 to keep emissions low

SPECTRA very likely does use Bragg cells. They’re pretty commonly used in ECM applications. SPECTRA does have a jamming capability.
http://www.thalesgroup.com/Portfolio/Defence/Aerospace_Product_SPECTRA/?pid=1568

well in order to create a successor to the Eurocanards, there must be a need for it. two Euro countries with major European aerospace industries (UK and Italy) are F-35 committed. And many of the richer ones who can buy, are also on that track.

that leaves Germany, which seems intent on maintaining an impotent air force (and really, do they have any need for more?)

the French, which still seem stuck with Rafale but could have the ability to do it..

and the Swedes with their Saab, which is the only one to produce a stealth concept.. but probably don’t have the financial and research powers like the French.

Just France, Germany, Sweden, eh? I mean isn’t that a huge piece of Europe? I think you also forgot about Spain and the Netherlands (who canceled their F-35 order).

There are only two countries that operate the Eurocanards who will be buying the F-35- the UK and Italy, and neither intends on using it as a Eurocanard replacement.

You’re still misrepresenting my point. I never said that the altered signal would return first, which was the entire point. By the time the altered signal arrived, the radar would’ve already changed freqs many times, and the unaltered signals would’ve been interpreted prior to any altered ones being filtered(due to not having the correct coding).

Which goes back to the whole- is the jammer operating at all times, or only if a threat is detected question? If the RWR/jammer don’t realize that a signal is a radar, it’s not going to be doing anything. The LPI signal has to be detected and identified as a threat, or it will be treated as background noise, and filtered out.

But if the ecm system can “learn” the patterns sent out by the radar, it can predict (within a certain probability) what frequencies will be used in the future. Frequency hopping will degrade an ECM system (possibly greatly depending on the radar and ecm in question), but it is not foolproof.

If you have objects of the same shape, lets say an object in the shape of an F-117. One of these objects is the size of a car. The other is the size of an aircraft carrier. Both of these objects will have a similar (not exactly the same, but similar) RCS. If you don’t believe it, don’t worry. Kelly Johnson had a hard time believing it, and he was one of the greatest aerospace engineers of the 20th century. So you’re in good company.

Wrightwing is, well…right. RCS is independent of size.

For some objects yes. Other objects, no. Conductive flat plates, spheres, cylinders, there most certainly is a size dependency. However, for an object like the F-117, things are probably far more dependent upon shape.

An Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA), also known as active phased array radar is a type of phased array radar whose transmitter and receiver functions are composed of numerous small solid-state transmit/receive (T/R) modules.

there is a reason thales is calling the RBE2 upgrade ‘AESA’
there is a reason thales is calling the jammer ‘active phased array’
as i read you need both t/r modules for aesa and aesa is a radar,
jammer type of active phased array isnt aesa, isnt a radar and doesnt have t/r module
now if you dont like it, tell thales they are wrong, best of luck with that

http://www.microwaves101.com/encyclopedia/phasedarrays.cfm

An AESA is a general type of antenna. It is a subset of phased array antennas. It is separate from a PESA antenna, as it each T/R module uses its own power source (high power amp). It is usually used on radars, but can be used elsewhere. For an example, see here, last slide:

http://spacejournal.ohio.edu/issue10/ppt/p7/Chris_Hawkins.ppt

Also, from Ausairpower (I know, I know):
http://www.ausairpower.net/TE-UCAV-2003.html

Typically X-band satcom uplinks require either steerable dishes of around one metre diameter, or in a stealthy vehicle an AESA (phased array) of similar size. Angular coverage for a satcom arrangement almost dictates an AESA flush mounted in the spine of the UCAV.

I don’t need to tell Thales they are wrong- they are not. An AESA and an Active Phased Array are the same thing.

I would bet that the PAK-FA would walk all over any J-10 variant. Really, J-XX is fairer competition, but there’s little to no info on that, and a prototype is highly unlikely to have flown.

Erkokite
0.5 is the number the russians and india are using, at this stage there is nothing to say they are wrong or misleading
as soon as india takes it to red flag or there is an exercise in india, then everyone can have a look
i’m sure a lot of pilots will line up for a back seat ride too

This is not the number they are “using.” This is an unofficial number that someone heard from an Indian MoD official who supposedly heard it from a PAK-FA technician. Any actual RCS data will be kept classified. There is nothing official about this number.

And as I said, 0.5 m^2 is likely nonsense because the Su-47 achieved 0.3 m^2 in the 1990’s, despite it having the front fuselage of a Su-27 and not being a 100% new design aircraft. There was no chining, nor planform alignment on the Su-47. Stealth shaping on the Su-47 was quite minimal. I’ve heard that the Mig-29SMT has an RCS of around 0.5 m^2 (presumably frontal, X-band). I’ve heard the Su-35 has an RCS of around 1 m^2.

There is no indication of what this 0.5 m^2 even means- does it mean average RCS? What frequency is it at? Does this include RAM coatings or blockers? Is it for the prototype, which has unfinished nuts/bolts showing in places, lacked RAM coatings and the final engine and nozzle, or is it the final model?

In addition the 0.5 m^2 claim may be confused as it seems to come from the claim that the T-50 has a 40x smaller RCS than the Su-30MKI, which could also mean a -40 dbsm reduction rather than a 40x reduction, which is significantly greater. There was a good discussion over on secret projects about it.

We have no idea of the veracity of the 0.5 m^2 figure and even if it is true, we have no idea what context it is in. The 0.5 m^2 simply doesn’t make any sense without more information.

But, as you say, we’ll have to wait until there are exercises with the PAK-FA, which should be interesting. But even then, they will likely fly with reflectors the way the F-22 often does today in exercises. Probably the closest we could get to actual numbers would be for someone to run an RCS simulation on the aircraft, but this also isn’t a whole lot of good because unless we know where the RAM is placed, or have a good idea of what materials are used where, we are unlikely to get a terribly accurate answer.