Far too many see stealth as binary: you are either invisible or have the radar signature of a barn door. People need to remember that the U.S. has a huge lead in both stealth technologies, and in sensor technology. So Russian aircraft do not have anything in the class of the APG-77, and I'd argue they probably never will.
All that said, I'd bet a pretty penny that you will never see an F-22 or F-35 strapping EFTs when the mission involves confronting a credible air defense. AA refueling will be used instead.
Anyone with a long wave-length radars will see these "stealth planes" from a country mile away. The only thing modern stealth planes are going to do is defeat medium range air to air missiles, and cause high speed interceptors linked to early warning radars to close the distance with heat seekers.
I was just searching around and the info on the AAMs is a little confusing. Currently the F-35 can carry 4 AMRAAMs internally. That will go up to six in a later block update (early 2020s). They can carry AIM-9x, but only externally because it is a rail launched missile. (It would probably not be difficult to develop a drop version, but it would need to be funded, which doesn't seem too likely right now).
4 AAMs is fine. How often do fighters exhaust their AAM stores these days? It's rare to shoot more than one missile. The days of epic air battles around long bomber formations are gone.
TBH, you probably could indeed detect it from a mile away.
4 AIM-120s is fine, but I think they should be able to carry at least 2 AIM-9x. How does the F-22 carry them? It carries them in their own bays on the side correct?
Well it was a government agency of some sort.
As for "gimped delivery"
Marine Corps F-35's were IOC'd on block 2b or something silly like that.
On that early "gimped block" they opened up a level of capability that blew away the Hornets and AV8b's they have.
Air Force went IOC on block 3i which is 2b on on better hardware. Pilot have already reported being blown away at the advantage they have over current aircraft.
Those F-16s and F-18s only need a long wave radar and they will see the F-35s from 1 mile away.
Uh, I dont even know if aircraft can carry low-frequency radars. I think they are mostly ground hardware. Regardless, they have to be able to get fine enough return to get a targeting lock to guide any missiles onto any aircraft they want to shoot down, and I dont think low-frequency radars are very good at fine picture IIRC.
I think he was joking
Uh, I dont even know if aircraft can carry low-frequency radars. I think they are mostly ground hardware. Regardless, they have to be able to get fine enough return to get a targeting lock to guide any missiles onto any aircraft they want to shoot down, and I dont think low-frequency radars are very good at fine picture IIRC.
just like the F22 Raptors have a bazillion kills with no loses vs F15s, on paper/fake fighting.I was leading a four ship of F-35s on a strike against 4th Gen adversaries, F-16s and F/A-18s. We fought our way in, we mapped the target, found the target, dropped JDAMs on the target and turned around and fought our way out. All the targets got hit, nobody got detected, and all the adversaries died. I thought, yes, this works, very, very, very well.
Never detected, nobody had any idea we were out there.
http://www.sldinfo.com/vmfa-121-brings-f-35b-to-red-flag-16-3-for-first-time/
And these are the "gimped" planes. They will only be getting better.
just like the F22 Raptors have a bazillion kills with no loses vs F15s, on paper/fake fighting.
but will there be a day where f22/f35 will fight planes more advanced than Vietnam/1980s era?
unless we're fighting our Nato allies?
Most likely it was some memo from Micheal Gilmore at the DOT&E.
The DOT&E is a basically a bureaucratic org created in the 80's to look at program testing and report on up the chain if they see any problems. They don't actually "Test anything". They simply nit pick everyone's test plans and report to DoD if they see any warning signs.
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Right now the "controversy" is over delivery of the block 3F software to the fleet.
Joint Program Office is busy going through all their test plans.
There aren't any issues where the F-35 is incapable of performing "X"
The issue is the tedious process of testing software on an aircraft.
Like the F-16's, F-15's, Hornets and just about every other aircraft we have, this is an aircraft that's going to be around for decades and will be in development until it is replaced.
As for "gimped delivery"
Marine Corps F-35's were IOC'd on block 2b or something silly like that.
On that early "gimped block" they opened up a level of capability that blew away the Hornets and AV8b's they have.
Air Force went IOC on block 3i which is 2b on on better hardware. Pilot have already reported being blown away at the advantage they have over current aircraft.
TBH, you probably could indeed detect it from a mile away.
Haha, I used country mile mostly as a metaphor.
In the late 90s the Serbians were able to detect F-117s from about 40 miles away using long wave-length radars, and jerry rigged a missile system to that radar system and managed to shoot it down. The Russians and Chinese will figure to roll this out pretty quickly (if they don't already have it) if some 3rd worlders in Eastern Europe could jerry rig a system to shoot down stealth bombers in a matter of weeks.
And I'm sure they'll be using a more powerful radar system than the 1950s technology the Serbs were using with their outdated SA-3s.
The F-35 literally has no purpose other than be a defense contractor welfare program since it'll be far more expensive to utilize than drones for bombing 3rd world peasants, and for heavily defended air space it makes far more sense to use F-22s which defend itself from threats far better, and has unparalled acceleration to run away if it's the best option, whereas the F-35 is too slow to outrun any 4th generation interceptors.
TBH, you probably could indeed detect it from a mile away.
coming soon to Age of Empires IVYou could have set up a trebuchet loaded with dead cow guided by drunken priest and downed the F-117
Hard to imagine how frustrating that must be. "Dammit, it's right there!"Or as reported by pilots flying in exercises against Raptors...
They can eyeball the damn plane right in front of them but they can't get their radars\sensors to do the same.
Hard to imagine how frustrating that must be. "Dammit, it's right there!"
Anyone with a long wave-length radars will see these "stealth planes" from a country mile away. The only thing modern stealth planes are going to do is defeat medium range air to air missiles, and cause high speed interceptors linked to early warning radars to close the distance with heat seekers.
And that's just BFM. In realistic exercises, aggressor pilots never see the F-22s they lose to. The Raptor just locks on and calls the kill.
Hey now, they're prone to let zombie planes continue to the merge to get some practice and after getting killed twice the earlier generation fighters win a small fraction of the resulting duels. At that point they're just going up against better avionics and some seriously sci-fi engines. Erm, sorry, "just". In practice I'd bet on an F-22 with no missiles over any of the teen series. Shame they gutted the Raptor buy enough that that might even be relevant when considering sortie generation over the China Sea.
Reminds me of a great story in revolt of the Iron Majors:
The IAF received twenty-one more F-15s in 1977 and 1978, but most of the pilots
chosen to fly it were young pilots with little experience, to the chagrin of many of the
IAF.s older aces. Most of these aces flew the Mirage III, a very small, simple, French
fighter with virtually no avionics and armed with only cannon and simple heat-seeking
missiles. Israeli Air Force pilots universally accepted the idea it was the pilot and his
skills, not the aircraft, which made the difference in a dogfight, and these old aces
initially looked forward to training dogfights in their Mirages against the F-15s flown by
the young .rookies.
But their first engagements with F-15s left the Mirage pilots shaking their heads. One
Mirage ace with fourteen kills described his first fight with an F-15 whose pilot was just
out of F-15 training school to the author. .The rules were that he could not use his AIM-
7s, so the fight began with a head-on pass. I started to turn and he pulled up and came
around on me. I saw him make three or four mistakes on the way that I could have easily
taken advantage of if he had been in a regular fighter, but there was nothing I could do to
counter the F-15. He shot me down within forty seconds. I flew home in my Mirage, both
of us feeling very old and out of date..23