A wing-loading of 108lbs/sq/ft means that the F-35 is not very maneuverable. So it is a horrible dogfighter and a lousy close-air support aircraft. And it's a lousy attack bomber, because it has a low bomb capacity.
What I hadn't heard before is the allegation that the stealth airplanes are only stealth to western radars. The Russians use very long wavelength radars that will see stealth aircraft. The Russians apparently claim that nothing is stealthy to a radar operating below 2GHz.
That would seem to be easily testable.
(H/T)
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It's well-known and has a solid physics foundation. The triangle shape of A-12 et cetera is meant to maximise the bandwidth spectrum of stealth by shaping.
More normal shapes can be detected quite easily with dedicated radars.
But those long wavelengths are only good for detection and ranging, horrible for fire control and impossible to employ for radar seekers in missiles and even fighters.
Radar stealth of combat aircraft is thus potent out of range of hostile ground-based radars (during defensive CAP), useful against medium range missiles (at least those with semi-active or active radar guidance) and when the relatively few long wavelength radar have been knocked out.
SO is correct, but when two of them lock you up, they do have 'good enough' fixing to fire a missile... e.g. the F-117 shot down in Bosnia...
"the purpose of the airplane is to spend money"
I can weigh in on that. I make components for the F-35, and they really weren't designed for manufacturability. We have to do some crazy processes to make these components, and it costs an arm and a leg. The contract is apparently for cost + percentage, because no expense is being spared to make the damn things. The food on my table comes from the F-35 and even I can see it's a horrid waste of taxpayer money.
X-band radars mounted on satellites are capable of finding stealth aircraft. X-band can even find submerged submarines.
Use long wave radar (ground, AWACS or satellite borne) linked into a data system continuously feeding data to your SAM network, fighters or swarms of semi-autonomous drones that attack using missiles with advanced IR/optic sensors. IR guides the missile in close and then optical targeting finishes the attack. With todays technology surely the image of all the enemy aircraft types from any angle in the sphere can be stored in the seeker head along with the images of friendlies so they can be excluded from the target list.
Whatever the future of air combat is, it will be quite different from anything we've seen so far.
Al_in_Ottawa
X-band radars mounted on satellites are capable of finding stealth aircraft. X-band can even find submerged submarines.
Use long wave radar (ground, AWACS or satellite borne) linked into a data system continuously feeding data to your SAM network, fighters or swarms of semi-autonomous drones that attack using missiles with advanced IR/optic sensors. IR guides the missile in close and then optical targeting finishes the attack. With todays technology surely the image of all the enemy aircraft types from any angle in the sphere can be stored in the seeker head along with the images of friendlies so they can be excluded from the target list.
Whatever the future of air combat is, it will be quite different from anything we've seen so far.
Al_in_Ottawa
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