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So, um, does Trump think the F35 is literally invisible, or what?

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/07/does-trump-even-know-what-stealth-means/

GOD DAMN IT YOU JUST MENTIONED TRUMP AND NOW THE THREAD WILL GET LOCKED!

What if Trump's DNA was spliced with Boris Johnsons? Not even sure that face would be one only a mother could love.

Crispy78 wrote:
So, um, does Trump think the F35 is literally invisible, or what?

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/07/does-trump-even-know-what-stealth-means/

It's amazing how many people think stealth is a magic cloak of invisibility, even if it only works on radar.

Crispy78 wrote:
So, um, does Trump think the F35 is literally invisible, or what?

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/07/does-trump-even-know-what-stealth-means/

Considering most combat is planned to take place BVR now a days, he's not wrong. It's pretty damn near invisible to enemy sensors. Of course, we can always just take everything he says at his literal word, and never try to read into the context of what's actually being discussed, to help score political gotcha points, cause what fun would things be if we didn't?

The same way the border wall was only metaphorical and obviously not something Trump wanted to do for real?

EDIT: We're veering into politics, better stop.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
The same way the border wall was only metaphorical and obviously not something Trump wanted to do for real?

EDIT: We're veering into politics, better stop.

Okay, you can't take a dig at Trump, then remind everyone we can't talk about Trump, in hopes of moving on without any retort. That's just not cool.

 djones520 wrote:

Crispy78 wrote:
So, um, does Trump think the F35 is literally invisible, or what?

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/07/does-trump-even-know-what-stealth-means/

Considering most combat is planned to take place BVR now a days, he's not wrong. It's pretty damn near invisible to enemy sensors. Of course, we can always just take everything he says at his literal word, and never try to read into the context of what's actually being discussed, to help score political gotcha points, cause what fun would things be if we didn't?

Planned is the problem. and exterior weapons make an aircraft's stealth non-existent. So how does the F-35 work again? It's exterior gun pod for close fire support makes it's stealth go away, so this is a workable plan... how?

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

Crispy78 wrote:
So, um, does Trump think the F35 is literally invisible, or what?

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/07/does-trump-even-know-what-stealth-means/

Considering most combat is planned to take place BVR now a days, he's not wrong. It's pretty damn near invisible to enemy sensors. Of course, we can always just take everything he says at his literal word, and never try to read into the context of what's actually being discussed, to help score political gotcha points, cause what fun would things be if we didn't?

Planned is the problem. and exterior weapons make an aircraft's stealth non-existent. So how does the F-35 work again? It's exterior gun pod for close fire support makes it's stealth go away, so this is a workable plan... how?

It's not.

 Vulcan wrote:


It's not.

Exactly, but no one will admit it until they lose a bunch of them.

Which is why there needs to be a live-fire test on drone-rigged aircraft to find out whether the F-35 can survive the battlefield anti-air environment.

They'll never do it, of course; they'll do their live-fire test in combat and, as you say, lose a bunch of F-35s to learn the lesson.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

Crispy78 wrote:
So, um, does Trump think the F35 is literally invisible, or what?

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/07/does-trump-even-know-what-stealth-means/

Considering most combat is planned to take place BVR now a days, he's not wrong. It's pretty damn near invisible to enemy sensors. Of course, we can always just take everything he says at his literal word, and never try to read into the context of what's actually being discussed, to help score political gotcha points, cause what fun would things be if we didn't?

Planned is the problem. and exterior weapons make an aircraft's stealth non-existent. So how does the F-35 work again? It's exterior gun pod for close fire support makes it's stealth go away, so this is a workable plan... how?

Why the feth would it be using a 25mm backup gun for close fire support. When it has guided bombs and A2G missiles. It ain't the 80s anymore.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vulcan wrote:
Which is why there needs to be a live-fire test on drone-rigged aircraft to find out whether the F-35 can survive the battlefield anti-air environment.

They'll never do it, of course; they'll do their live-fire test in combat and, as you say, lose a bunch of F-35s to learn the lesson.

Stealth has worked out alright for the F22, and the F22 has a larger cross section than the F35. :

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

Why the feth would it be using a 25mm backup gun for close fire support. When it has guided bombs and A2G missiles. It ain't the 80s anymore.

Ask the military. Particularly the Marines, but also the Navy and Airforce. Remember that, if given their way, two out of three branches of the military would have turned down this plane. But were basically told they had no choice.

Truth be told, your question reminded me a similar sentiment from the airfroce back i nthe 1960's. Though then that it wasn't the 40's anymore, then they made the Phantom II without one and discovered in combat that they really fething needed that.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

Stealth has worked out alright for the F22, and the F22 has a larger cross section than the F35. :

True but the F-22 mostly has everything internal, F-35 also makes use of external weapon mounts.



Behold, the 'stealth' F-35 and it's many, many stealth reducing hard points. With all this external BS on, a dirigible is stealthy by comparison.




To make things worse, the F-35C has half the range and payload of not only it's contemporaries, but it's predecessors.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

Spoiler:

Ask the military. Particularly the Marines, but also the Navy and Airforce. Remember that, if given their way, two out of three branches of the military would have turned down this plane. But were basically told they had no choice.

Truth be told, your question reminded me a similar sentiment from the airfroce back i nthe 1960's. Though then that it wasn't the 40's anymore, then they made the Phantom II without one and discovered in combat that they really fething needed that.

There may be some confusion, I thought you were talking about it using it's gun for CAS. But regardless:
A. tech has advanced since then
and
B. it does have an internally mounted 25mm rotary cannon, same thing was on the F22. It has the option to have external mounted guns, yes, but those would not be used in an Air Superiority mission (and the F-35 would serve to compliment our F22s in that case anyway.

True but the F-22 mostly has everything internal, F-35 also makes use of external weapon mounts.

Spoiler:

It can mount them, it doesn't use them in instances where stealth is required. In fact I'm not sure it used them for actual combat at all. And it's nowhere as good as an air superiority fighter as the F22, but that's because it does everything else as well.

Behold, the 'stealth' F-35 and it's many, many stealth reducing hard points. With all this external BS on, a dirigible is stealthy by comparison.

Spoiler:

Again, not really it is still plenty stealthy, just less so with the hard-points, and that's why they are working on ones that do conserve the stealth .

To make things worse, the F-35C has half the range and payload of not only it's contemporaries, but it's predecessors.

Well A, it's replacing the old f-18s (not, I should add, the Super Hornets, those are staying in service), and they have a very similar range of just over 1000 nautical miles. F35 actually has a bit more at approximatly 1200. And when using external stores (where the F35 is still a bagillion times stealthier than a hornet) they have the same number of hardpoints that can fit A2A missiles, 6. Now the storage in the internal bay is lacking, I agree, but it stll puts it at match with the things it's replacing and it's other strengths help it preform where it should. And both pale in comparison to the F22s 12 though, which is why we need more of those IMO, but that's another topic.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Now the storage in the internal bay is lacking, I agree, but it stll puts it at match with the things it's replacing .

Not even close, as the planned load out for 'high threat' environments requires them to use ZERO external mounts. Meaning the only thing she's got is two Air to Air missiles and then it's time to run like hell because she can't dogfight for gak.



As far as developing stealth external weapon mounts, I think their success is unlikely. The reason that I say this is that the current weapon mounts shape is what causes the issue. However, they're shaped like that to keep the weapon mounts from being torn off by drag when the plane goes super sonic.

I can imagine a stealthy external weapon mount which is a bulge enshrouding the weapon itself.

Something a bit like the F15's Sparrow missiles or the F14's Phoenix missiles, which were faired into the underside of the fuselage, but mounted on the wing. It could actually go a step further and effectively be a completely enclosed weapon bay mounted on the wing instead of the fuselage.

The obvious disadvantage is extra drag and the need for different shape shrouds for different types of weapons.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I can imagine a stealthy external weapon mount which is a bulge enshrouding the weapon itself.

Something a bit like the F15's Sparrow missiles or the F14's Phoenix missiles, which were faired into the underside of the fuselage, but mounted on the wing. It could actually go a step further and effectively be a completely enclosed weapon bay mounted on the wing instead of the fuselage.

The obvious disadvantage is extra drag and the need for different shape shrouds for different types of weapons.

Not just drag but mass on the wings. The further out you put greater mass, the more likely you are to tear off the wing in high speed maneuvers. Also, it's not the aerodynamics of it but the fact that the weapon hardpoints form right angles, increasing radar reflection. the weapon adds to this, but it's not 'just' the weapon.

I'm imagining a lightweight pod, probably made of composite materials, shaped like a papaya or perhaps a sea squirt, which would be non-radar reflective and would enclose the weapon and pylon.

To put it another way, the pod would be like a mini-fuselage bomb bay, wrapped around the weapon, mounted on the wing.

It would add a little bit of weight, but the main problem would be drag.

In a computer controlled plane, the flight management system could be programmed to minimise the additional stress on the wongs.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
which would be non-radar reflective.

I imagine wrapping myself in Brazilian supermodels. The laws of physics say mine is more likely.

Things like Iron ball paint, etc, can REDUCE radar signature, but there's no actual thing that's 'non-radar reflective'. If there was, we'd use it.

The other issue is that you're weakening the wing if you try to make an internal mount, and have to work your flight control surfaces around that. Never mind that the wings are nowhere near as thick as the ordinance they'd have to contain.

What I mean is the skin material and shape of the F35 is non-reflective or at least minimally reflective, so as to give the airplane its stealth quality.

This type of skin prevents the internal weapons, engine and so on, from showing through, too, or it would be relatively useless.

Therefore it should be possible to shroud the wing pylons, using the same concept of skin design for the pod, to minimise radar signature and hide the internal components.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
What I mean is the skin material and shape of the F35 is non-reflective or at least minimally reflective, so as to give the airplane its stealth quality.

This type of skin prevents the internal weapons, engine and so on, from showing through, too, or it would be relatively useless.

Therefore it should be possible to shroud the wing pylons, using the same concept of skin design for the pod, to minimise radar signature and hide the internal components.

We can barely keep that material on the plane. It's the main reason that the F-35 cannot be repaired in the field, as it is, because that material can't be applied in the field. it has to be sent back to Lockheed every single time there's a significant breach in the materiel. The Navy is building a whole new class of ship who's only job is to transport these suckers back and forth.

So every time you have a sortie, you'd have to fly back to Lockheed for maint if you tried that.

Stealth is often overrated anyways. For one, it doesn't actually make you invisible or anything, not even to radar. It just reduces your radar signature so that it looks like something smaller than a big-ass fighter jet (such as a flock of birds). Which means the enemy could still lock onto you if they see through your ruse (like when they know there is supposed to be a stealth aircraft in the area, which is how that F-117 was shot down by Serb nationalists in the 90's) And as baron validly points out, it would be very hard to maintain in a combat environment. Stealth is nice to have as a bonus on an aircraft, but it is not the end all be all. An aircraft's non-stealth characteristics like speed, maneuverability, weapons load etc. are still way more important.
The question for any stealth aircraft should be: Is it still a good aircraft without its stealth?

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
. It is also why sending a really light aircraft on a CAS mission is a really stupid idea that is generally only done in cases where a military doesn't have any better planes available.

Really? Because it's been fairly effective for at least 15 years now. The Super Tucano has, as an example, been in service since 2003 in some airforces. I'm sure you'll arrogantly dismiss them as idiots and amateurs, but it does actually work. In fact, several mercenary groups, including Blackwater, have made a point to acquire them. The USAF has been playing with the idea of buying some since 2008. They've been increasing in popularity in warzones where cost is an issue ever since they melted the faces of some Shilka's that Russia has NO IDEA how they fell in to the hands of FARC terrorists in Colombia. Clearly the armor just washed up on the beach one day along with the rest of their gear.

Actually, I was going to say that in these particular circumstances, a light attack aircraft could be really useful. When you are fighting an enemy that has virtually no anti-air defenses whatsoever, it doesn't matter much what you mount your weapons on and you can go for the cheapest platform. You might as well mount them on an ultralight (ok, maybe not that). Also, I can find nothing for the FARC having Shilkas, and I would question the usefulness of such a weapon in a dense jungle. Anyways, the FARC got most of its weapons through Venezuela. Last and off-topic, the FARC weren't terrorists any more than the Columbian government or the US were terrorists. Both sides resorted to terrorism.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
.
The Navy and Airforce have dedicated aircraft to fulfill the air superiority role, leaving other aircraft free to engage ground targets.

Actually almost everything they have has been converted to multi-role if it was not that to begin with. Particularly in the Navy. Please point me to something that is still currently an air superiority fighter besides a rapidly diminishing number of unconverted F-15's, since F-22s are in such small numbers they're nearly irrelevant.

And when done properly air superiority is seized an hour or two before the invasion, since you want as little time for them to prepare as possible. Usually your runways and SAM sites exploding is a big tip off that something is up. If you also have ot knock out 50k artillery sites, then you're stretching your supply of aircraft rather thin.

What kind of hint would runways and SAM sites exploding give that a massive US carrier fleet heading for your coast hasn't already given? You can't prepare such a big invasion in secrecy anyways. Not with satellites constantly watching you. As with the Gulf War, you can take plenty of time to knock out targets before sending in the troops. Because once you have air superiority and have knocked out their air defenses, the enemy will have a hard time preparing and mobilising to defend against your ground assault.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
What kind of hint would runways and SAM sites exploding give that a massive US carrier fleet heading for your coast hasn't already given? You can't prepare such a big invasion in secrecy anyways. Not with satellites constantly watching you.

Cap, ships are easy to miss even today. In the last six months ships the equivalent displacement of an entire carrier group have vanished. Sometimes they show up as drifting hulks, others with the crew frozen in the freezer at a Chinese wreckers yard.

Unless said carrier's sailors are stupid enough to turn on their cell phones, you will be in range of them long before you see them.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
What kind of hint would runways and SAM sites exploding give that a massive US carrier fleet heading for your coast hasn't already given? You can't prepare such a big invasion in secrecy anyways. Not with satellites constantly watching you.

Cap, ships are easy to miss even today. In the last six months ships the equivalent displacement of an entire carrier group have vanished. Sometimes they show up as drifting hulks, others with the crew frozen in the freezer at a Chinese wreckers yard.

Unless said carrier's sailors are stupid enough to turn on their cell phones, you will be in range of them long before you see them.

Seriously?
A lone rickety old freighter in the middle of nowhere doesn't get nearly the same attention from surveillance satellites as a carrier group. Ships aren't easy to miss at all, they are big, shiny and leave a giant wake in the water.
Ships go missing because they aren't being watched constantly, but once they start searching for them it is usually only a matter of days before they are found (presuming that the ship hasn't sunk, obviously. Finding something underwater is quite a bit harder).
And no, contrary to what you are saying, it is incredibly rare for ships to vanish. Pulling up a quick statistic from Google, over a period of 11 years from 2002 to 2013, only 7 ships have actually disappeared without known cause. All other ships that are 'lost', are lost to a known accident. Those drifting hulks don't come about because ships and crews mysteriously vanish, but because the crew thinks the ship is going to sink and abandons it, while in fact the damage to the ship is not actually enough to fully sink the ship. Another cause for them are accidents that kill the crew (fire, explosion) but do not cause enough structural damage to sink the ship. At any rate, most of these drifting ships are known and tracked in case they drift into busy shipping lanes.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

A lone rickety old freighter in the middle of nowhere doesn't get nearly the same attention from surveillance satellites as a carrier group.

Nor it seems do brand screaming new ones, anchored in Malaysia.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Ships aren't easy to miss at all, they are big, shiny and leave a giant wake in the water.

Try it sometime. Even in the Great Lakes.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Ships go missing because they aren't being watched constantly, but once they start searching for them it is usually only a matter of days before they are found (presuming that the ship hasn't sunk, obviously. Finding something underwater is quite a bit harder).

Yes, yes it is, though it's actually slightly easier from the oil slick and debris that gives the occasional hint.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

And no, contrary to what you are saying, it is incredibly rare for ships to vanish. Pulling up a quick statistic from Google, over a period of 11 years from 2002 to 2013, only 7 ships have actually disappeared without known cause.

About 'known cause': read that in many cases as 'we guess'. or, rather frequently in certain areas 'we think pirates but'. Rather frequently the 'known cause' comes about to settle the insurance claim. It's led to a brisk business in hidden satellite transponders attached to the ship someplace.

There have been 191 attacks against large ships since January this year. It's been a slow year.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

All other ships that are 'lost', are lost to a known accident. Those drifting hulks don't come about because ships and crews mysteriously vanish, but because the crew thinks the ship is going to sink and abandons it, while in fact the damage to the ship is not actually enough to fully sink the ship. Another cause for them are accidents that kill the crew (fire, explosion) but do not cause enough structural damage to sink the ship. At any rate, most of these drifting ships are known and tracked in case they drift into busy shipping lanes.

Or Chinese military ships kill the crews and pilot the ship to a wreckers yard where they don't ask too many questions. Australia is still a bit pissed with China about that. Not just the incursion into Australian waters by the PLAN, but the piracy as well.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:
Which is why there needs to be a live-fire test on drone-rigged aircraft to find out whether the F-35 can survive the battlefield anti-air environment.

They'll never do it, of course; they'll do their live-fire test in combat and, as you say, lose a bunch of F-35s to learn the lesson.

Stealth has worked out alright for the F22, and the F22 has a larger cross section than the F35. :

Which has what to do with IR and optically aimed and guided antiair defenses?

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

A lone rickety old freighter in the middle of nowhere doesn't get nearly the same attention from surveillance satellites as a carrier group.

Nor it seems do brand screaming new ones, anchored in Malaysia.

[insert vague allusion that does not actually say anything here]

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Ships aren't easy to miss at all, they are big, shiny and leave a giant wake in the water.

Try it sometime. Even in the Great Lakes.

I'd love to. But unfortunately I don't have a state of the art military surveillance satellite. I know people who do, and I guess I could ask them really nicely if I could use their satellite for a bit, but they would obviously say no.

[

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Ships go missing because they aren't being watched constantly, but once they start searching for them it is usually only a matter of days before they are found (presuming that the ship hasn't sunk, obviously. Finding something underwater is quite a bit harder).

Yes, yes it is, though it's actually slightly easier from the oil slick and debris that gives the occasional hint.

Oil slick and debris usually only hint at "something has sunk, somewhere". Due to water currents and the wind oil and debris tend to spread out over a large area.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

And no, contrary to what you are saying, it is incredibly rare for ships to vanish. Pulling up a quick statistic from Google, over a period of 11 years from 2002 to 2013, only 7 ships have actually disappeared without known cause.

About 'known cause': read that in many cases as 'we guess'. or, rather frequently in certain areas 'we think pirates but'. Rather frequently the 'known cause' comes about to settle the insurance claim. It's led to a brisk business in hidden satellite transponders attached to the ship someplace.

There have been 191 attacks against large ships since January this year. It's been a slow year.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

All other ships that are 'lost', are lost to a known accident. Those drifting hulks don't come about because ships and crews mysteriously vanish, but because the crew thinks the ship is going to sink and abandons it, while in fact the damage to the ship is not actually enough to fully sink the ship. Another cause for them are accidents that kill the crew (fire, explosion) but do not cause enough structural damage to sink the ship. At any rate, most of these drifting ships are known and tracked in case they drift into busy shipping lanes.

Or Chinese military ships kill the crews and pilot the ship to a wreckers yard where they don't ask too many questions. Australia is still a bit pissed with China about that. Not just the incursion into Australian waters by the PLAN, but the piracy as well.

Well, yeah. If a ship is lost with all hands it is of course difficult to establish the exact cause why a ship has sunk. But the ship never actually vanishes. The fact that it has sunk and the location where will be known.
I have never heard about the Chinese Navy attacking Australian (or any) ships. I am sure that story would have made the news. If you have a source, I would love to hear.

You're kinda underestimating how dang big the ocean is. Sure, if you are constantly tracking a ship with a satellite you can keep and eye on it if you know where it is right now. But as soon as you get a cloudy day that ship is going to disappear from your satellite photos and you're going to have an impossible task of finding it again, especially if it doesn't want to be found. And cloudy days happen all the time out on the ocean. Plus even if you do see a ship it can be tough to tell if its the same ship. Most cargo ships are going to look similar when viewed from above.


Back to the merits of stealthy aircraft,

Stealth is fine for an opening engagement or a hit and run attack where you are trying to covertly destroy a few key things but aren't going to have a prolonged engagement.

What the US could really use is a non-stealth fighter that is optimized for operating in a hot combat zone. Something that could be deployed in numbers, while fragile stealth aircraft operate in a support role where they can maximize their advantages. A mutually beneficial support structure. The Stealth aircraft aren't expected to dogfight where they would lose their advantages, while the conventional aircraft would be both a distraction and a hammer. So the enemy has to deal with stealth aircraft nipping their vulnerable spots while also being hit by a main force of obviously visible combat aircraft.

In many ways, having some visible aircraft also makes the stealth aircraft more stealthy. Because if you are monitoring a radar screen and see just a few tiny blips you might pay more attention to those tiny blips. But if you see several obvious blips, the tiny blips of the stealth aircraft will be more likely not to be noticed. So in many ways by only using stealth aircraft we are making it easier to detect those aircraft, because everybody knows what we use and that they should pay attention to those tiny blips.

 Vulcan wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:
Which is why there needs to be a live-fire test on drone-rigged aircraft to find out whether the F-35 can survive the battlefield anti-air environment.

They'll never do it, of course; they'll do their live-fire test in combat and, as you say, lose a bunch of F-35s to learn the lesson.

Stealth has worked out alright for the F22, and the F22 has a larger cross section than the F35. :

Which has what to do with IR and optically aimed and guided antiair defenses?

\
Can't shoot at what you don't know is there. And how does a non-stealthy vehicle deal with those any better? F22>all


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grey Templar wrote:
You're kinda underestimating how dang big the ocean is. Sure, if you are constantly tracking a ship with a satellite you can keep and eye on it if you know where it is right now. But as soon as you get a cloudy day that ship is going to disappear from your satellite photos and you're going to have an impossible task of finding it again, especially if it doesn't want to be found. And cloudy days happen all the time out on the ocean. Plus even if you do see a ship it can be tough to tell if its the same ship. Most cargo ships are going to look similar when viewed from above.


Back to the merits of stealthy aircraft,

Stealth is fine for an opening engagement or a hit and run attack where you are trying to covertly destroy a few key things but aren't going to have a prolonged engagement.

What the US could really use is a non-stealth fighter that is optimized for operating in a hot combat zone. Something that could be deployed in numbers, while fragile stealth aircraft operate in a support role where they can maximize their advantages. A mutually beneficial support structure. The Stealth aircraft aren't expected to dogfight where they would lose their advantages, while the conventional aircraft would be both a distraction and a hammer. So the enemy has to deal with stealth aircraft nipping their vulnerable spots while also being hit by a main force of obviously visible combat aircraft.

In many ways, having some visible aircraft also makes the stealth aircraft more stealthy. Because if you are monitoring a radar screen and see just a few tiny blips you might pay more attention to those tiny blips. But if you see several obvious blips, the tiny blips of the stealth aircraft will be more likely not to be noticed. So in many ways by only using stealth aircraft we are making it easier to detect those aircraft, because everybody knows what we use and that they should pay attention to those tiny blips.

It's a bit more complicated than that honestly. Even with US tech we can only detect our own fething planes via AWACs systems. And the AWACs just lets them know vaugly that there is a stealth fighter there. So every single little blip, little smidge must be that aircraft. There's a really interesting article on it.

https://www.businessinsider.com/psychological-effect-f-35-stealth-legacy-fighter-2017-5

"I remember indelibly the moment in which the AWAC (airborne early warning and control plane) called out to me that there was a Raptor [an F-22 stealth fighter] in front of me at very close range that made me uncomfortable," Flatley told Business Insider in a phone interview.

"I had no way of targeting him, no way of defending myself."

Despite years of training to stay focused and level headed under the extreme pressures of air-to-air combat, a sense of dread set in.

Legacy jets, with the help of AWACs "may have a general idea that there's an F-35 out there, but they don't know exactly where we are," said Flatley.

The distinct information disadvantage causes pilots to get tunnel vision, according to Flatley.

"Everything they see becomes the F-35 out there," said Flatley. "Every radar hit, every communication is about the stealth jet. They want to illuminate or eliminate a threat they can't handle."

I do agree on not putting all our eggs in one basket though, having a fighter, with stealth elements, but more focused on dog-fighting would be a good backup. And building more F22s. And modernising our current F-22s. And finally lifting that fething trade embargo so we can sell some to our allies.

The JASDF originally wanted to buy F22s but that was blocked by congress to protect the stealth tech. But now they have got their hands on F35s that tech is already out there. So the F22J idea that was floated (F22 with the F35s more advanced electronics and 3d thrust vectoring engines) would be a nice fit for both them and us.
https://www.businessinsider.com/lockheed-to-offer-japan-stealthy-hybrid-of-f-22-and-f-35-fighter-jets-2018-4

All large ships are constantly tracked using similar technology to the trackers in aircraft.

That's how that big study on fishing fleets was done. They analysed the tracker data over time against other factors such as seasonality.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-43169824

I doubt military ships will go around with their trackers on if they want to be stealthy.

 Grey Templar wrote:
You're kinda underestimating how dang big the ocean is. Sure, if you are constantly tracking a ship with a satellite you can keep and eye on it if you know where it is right now. But as soon as you get a cloudy day that ship is going to disappear from your satellite photos and you're going to have an impossible task of finding it again, especially if it doesn't want to be found. And cloudy days happen all the time out on the ocean.

Which is why the Soviets had radar satellites in orbit designed to track naval targets.... RORSATS, I think they were called.

It's not terribly hard to put a radar into orbit, after all. Powering it is a bit trickier, but doable.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:
Which is why there needs to be a live-fire test on drone-rigged aircraft to find out whether the F-35 can survive the battlefield anti-air environment.

They'll never do it, of course; they'll do their live-fire test in combat and, as you say, lose a bunch of F-35s to learn the lesson.

Stealth has worked out alright for the F22, and the F22 has a larger cross section than the F35. :

Which has what to do with IR and optically aimed and guided antiair defenses?

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Can't shoot at what you don't know is there. And how does a non-stealthy vehicle deal with those any better? F22>all

Battlefield anti-air defenses - the type fired at close support aircraft and helicopters - are mostly IR and optically guided. The Stinger and the Strela (and it's successors) are IR guided, after all, and most gunfire is optically aimed.

Yes, they'll see the F-35 when it's doing close air support. It's a big black spot in the sky, and (if you've seen the IR video kicking around the internet of the test of the F-35 hovering) you already know it's HIGHLY visible in IR. RADAR stealth does exactly diddly-squat against OPTICAL and IR GUIDANCE.