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An F-22 Raptor’s Crumbling Radar Absorbent Skin
- dogma1138 7y agoDoesn’t look like the actual airframe is degrading, it’s the nose it’s likely the composite RADOME that is degrading, if it’s even material degradation the damage looks almost like a bird or an object strike. The description of the internal structure also seems to be quite similar to other RADOME even marine ones.
- jjoonathan 7y agoOver the last decade or so I've gotten the chance to use a number of antenna /accessories made of uwave RADOME plastic from a few different vendors and in all cases the plastic was cracked, crumbling, taped together, etc. It seems like a systematic problem. I bet there are a bunch of polymer chemists who know exactly what's going on.
- dogma1138 7y agoI have a feeling that it's a combination of two things. 1) The plastics might need to be made out of a very specific material which might not be very stable in the long term. 2) RADARs get freaking bloody hot and even a few % of absorption might be enough to essentially make them into a microwave oven. I'm guessing some combination of the material, pure heat and radiation might be the cause of these plastics breaking down but I'm not a material engineer however this is something that I've also encountered. I have had experience with SAR pods and their RADOMEs have had to be constantly replaced due to degradation as well. In fact in spot/strip mode it wouldn't be uncommon to see actual discoloration of the RADOME after a few flights.
- jjoonathan 7y agoMost of the crumbling RADOME material I've seen has been on receive-only antennae, because that's what I deal with regularly, so I don't think it's purely a power thing. My working hypothesis is more in line with your (1), that plasticizer is the major absorbing component of the plastic, so to make RADOME plastic you just leave out the plasticizer and live with crumbly plastic. But I'm no polymer chemist, so that's really just speculation.
- starpilot 7y agoDoesn't look like the radome. The radar antenna is inside the nosecone: http://www.f22fighter.com/f22cutaway.jpg http://www.f22fighter.com/f22cutaway.jpg whereas the cracking appears to be on the skin covering avionics.
- dogma1138 7y agoWe don't know how far back the RADOME goes on aircraft with nose installed MLDS with radar lock detection the the RADOME might extend to the cockpit. Pod based MLDS systems are essentially made from the same materials as RADOMEs for this reason.
- cairo_x 7y agoI AM THE GHOST OF THE YF-23. SEE YOU IN HELL, B*TCH.
- greedo 7y agoF-23 would have had the same skin coating technology as the F-22. The F-35 has benefitted greatly by research done since the designs were finalized.
- cairo_x 7y agoWhat on earth made you think I was implying it wouldn't have? It was a joke about an imaginary f-23 ghost having schadenfreude. Sorry to everyone I've offend who down-voted this. LOL. XD
- sschueller 7y agoIs it really possible to hide an aircraft from modern radar? Even if the aircraft had a radar footprint of a bird, no bird flies near or over mach 1.
- joyjoyjoy 7y agoNo, it isnt. No aircraft can be stealthy by definition. You can see it, right? There are tons of detections methods, wavelengths and other stuff you can scan the sky with. And you may be able to evade some of them. In the end you buy low speed, low dog fighting capability, low payload and huge maintenance time for the bet that you may or may be not invisible. If your bet fails, it comes at a high costs since your one trick pony failed.
- imtringued 7y agoIt is effective against missiles that are equipped with very small radars. Since new aircraft like the F-35 are equipped with strong ECM and no longer require dedicated jamming support aircraft you also cannot use the much wider radar of the aircraft to guide the missile. This means we are back to using infrared missiles which can be avoided by flares.
- mysterydip 7y agoDetection isn't the issue as much as determining what is clutter and what isn't. When you reduce your signal to the level of noise, you can go undetected a lot of the time.
- Sharlin 7y agoIt is not about being confused with a bird, but simply about the fact that things that are less reflective (whether due to size, material, or geometry) are able to get closer before crossing the signal:noise threshold.
- b_tterc_p 7y agoHow hard is it to generate noise?
- maxerickson 7y agoThey should just call every modern fighter "Icarus".
- natermer 7y agoThe actual code names used for the for USA jets during development are: 'The F-35 Boondoggle' and 'The F-22 Rape the tax payer' Not quite the same ring to it as 'Raptor', so I understand why they changed it. But it's nice to know how many years of my tax payments go into every minute of flight for one of these jets... For the sake of boosting of Lockheed Martin's weapons sales via tax payer funded advertising. Makes me proud to be a American.
- eparconsulant 7y agoF35 is a piece of shit. The non export SA 400s and their Network of radars etc can stick it right in the SCSI. Let's make America A-10 again.
- JustSomeNobody 7y ago"Modern" - Move fast and break stuff while delivering crap.
- umvi 7y agoSeems like it would be cheaper to have non-stealth F-22 coatings for training, and then only apply the costly stealth coatings if doing actual missions?
- duxup 7y agoHow long would that take? Not sure that would quality as being ready as needed.
- JshWright 7y agoIt's mentioned several times in the article that there are various readiness levels that have different requirements for stealth coatings. It mentions that roughly a third of the fleet is not combat coated, etc.
- greedo 7y agoCombat "coded."
- lallysingh 7y agoA reasonable answer, I think. But that requires more engineering and training and cost (perhaps it'll net out as savings in the end, but not up front).
- djohnston 7y agowho do you have to know to get a joyride in one of these? do the trainers even have two seats?
- nradov 7y agoSingle seat only. Training is done in simulators.
- Ididntdothis 7y agoBeing a Hollywood star may help. At least the Blue Angels would take you for a ride. Not sure if the F-22 is available for fun rides but a F-18 or F-16 should be good enough for most of us.
- outworlder 7y ago> but a F-18 or F-16 should be good enough for most of us. Dude, an F-5 would be enough for most of us. These aircraft are amazing.
- briandear 7y agoThe cockpit of an F-22 is classified, so even a Hollywood star doesn’t get a ride unless they happen to have the relevant security clearance.
- mikeash 7y agoYou’ll have a much easier time getting a ride in a Russian jet. MiG-29 rides go for something in the neighborhood of $15-20,000.
- mothsonasloth 7y agoBecome friends with Larry Ellison, he has a Mig29 thats fully serviced.
- bitL 7y ago"Unofficially", officially he has some Italian clunker. MiG-29 is considered a weapon that can't be held privately.
- wcoenen 7y ago> flying this aircraft is extremely expensive with an average flight hour cost of about $60k This made me wonder how many disposable small drones could be mass produced for that price. Like in the "slaughterbots" video, or the "hated in the nation" bee drones.
- imtringued 7y agoMaybe 1/10th of a cheap drone.
- itsibitzi 7y agoIt comes down to the fact that the military (and associated industrial complex) doesn't exist to win wars.
- Whack-kneed 7y agoLess than you might think.... Drones are (over)priced like jewelry (because they can!) For example, the drone shot down by Iran last month was valued at 85 mil.
- mrguyorama 7y agoThat's essentially the concept of a cruise missile
- wazoox 7y agoAnd what about what looks like rust smears around the rivets? This doesn't look like the master of the skies to me. It looks like decadence of the military industrial complex, and bad use of $400 millions of taxpayer money. It looks like the most inefficient way of financing jobs across a country ever...
- kuzehanka 7y agoHuh? The F-22 is the most capable manned fighter that exists on the planet, not even US adversaries dispute it being the master of the skies. It allows missions that would be otherwise impossible. Yes, the price of that is high.
- computerex 7y agohttps://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/f-22-raptors-may-not-be-able-to-overcome-russia-s-su-35-after-all-severe-shortcomings-america-s-most-advanced-fighter-emerge-during-operations-in-syria https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/f-22-raptors-may-n... https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/how-did-russian-su-35-fighter-track-stealth-f-22-raptor-46062 https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/how-did-russian-su-35...
- computerex 7y agoDo you have a source to back this up?
- outworlder 7y agoThese "source" requests are tiring. What about you do some googling? If this is obviously false it won't take too much time to disprove it, right? I would be surprised if any credible source claimed that there was something better than the F-22. The possible competitors are either not in the same ballpark or not really ready for anything other than airshows.
- computerex 7y agoYou are mistaking Hacker news for reddit. The burden of proof lies on the person making fantastic claims. I obviously have sources saying the contrary that's why I disagree with your sentiment. That's why I'm interested to see the sources claiming the contrary. Maybe you should do some googling yourself and you'll find footage of French Rafale wiping the floor with the raptor in a simulated dogfight.
- Zenst 7y agoHow much is UV factored into the design of materials in outer surfaces with regards to aircraft is my initial thought here. Given the effects of UV can be most damaging and aircraft would as higher elevation be at an increased risk of higher UV levels than you would at ground level.
- scld 7y agoIt's very factored in.
- wtdata 7y agoI don't get it. Why not just keep a smaller part of the fleet with radar absorbent skin in top notch condition (and barely use it outside mission, thus keeping it in a good condition) and keep the other part of the fleet entirely without this feature, for usage in scenarios where it's not needed?
- vilhelm_s 7y agoThe F-22s are already a small part of the U.S. air force fleet, which need to be saved for scenarios that require their unique capabilities. There are 187 F-22s, while the air force has e.g. 473 F-15s and 1,245 F-16s.
- jorblumesea 7y agoSounds like what we've been used to from the military industrial complex. Over promised, over budget, under delivered with huge maintenance contracts and terrible shelf life. It used to be the defense industry produced equipment worth having, just wastefully. Now we can't even produce properly designed planes.
- mzs 7y agoThis same plane has been exactly the same for a year and a half. https://www.spot.im/s/00f6Ja46G1re https://www.spot.im/s/00f6Ja46G1re
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- novaleaf 7y agoHmm, i though we could flag comments. I guess not. It seems to be @MZS is someone naughty and trying to get referral commissions. visit http://www.spot.im http://www.spot.im and you'll see what I mean. His link just redirects to the original article after he gets your click tracked. If I'm wrong, I'd be happy if you inform me via a reply!
- mzs 7y agoSure I'm naughty but not in this case. That's how you link to an individual comment in a thread, scroll down (with javascript enabled) and you will then see the comments about this 'damage' not being new and speculation about what it could be about. I don't benefit in any way if anyone follows that link, but others might from the discussion in those threads at the end of the article there.
- richardw 7y agoCan, click on the "x minutes ago", and then flag.
- kuyan 7y agoIt looks like spot.im powers the comment platform that @mzs links to. Clicking "share" under a comment generates a spot.im URL.
- zimbu668 7y agoAnd it's impossible to make replacement parts for the F-22 now. The US military paid Lockheed Martin to store all the custom tooling and manuals in case the production line needed to be restarted. A few years later that was attempted and the shipping containers holding all the tooling were empty! https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/solution-americas-f-35-nightmare-why-not-build-more-f-22s-13858 https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/solution-americas... I'm genuinely fascinated by this, but haven't been able to find more information. Was there an investigation? Did the tooling just get sent to the scrap heap? Who signed off on empty storage containers?
- bsamuels 7y agoOne possibility is they were stolen by an intelligence agency - if so you'll probably never hear about the investigation
- hanniabu 7y agoEither that or they were always empty so they can get another outrageously huge contract to "recreate" the tooling
- jrs235 7y agoOr, they were always empty and merely a honey pot to catch anyone trying to break in and steal the technology.
- blaser-waffle 7y agoI'd believe the contractors scamming more money before I'd believe the honeypot. Defense Intelligence isn't that forward thinking.
- wil421 7y agoThere is a semi-follow up article from the same source that says tooling was not lost. >Moreover, the Air Force is auditing the Sierra Army Depot to make sure that the F-22 manufacturing tooling is secure—and thus far everything is in order. The audit is 85 percent complete and thus far all of the tooling has been found. Earlier, some Air Force officials had expressed concerns that the equipment had been misplaced—however, those concerns were unfounded as it turns out.[1] [1]https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-us-air-forces-stealth-f-22-raptor-will-fly-until-2060-21329 https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-us-air-forces...
- mothsonasloth 7y agoDoes the F35 JSF have the same material? Will that mean spiralling maintenance costs for both fleets (US and allies)? Surely its better to invest in SEAD (AA suppression) and better counter measures like lasers?
- SEJeff 7y agoThe ideal modern SEAD combo is the F22 flying ahead to designate targets and using the F35 as the "gun truck" to launch missiles at targets the F22 sends it.
- thunderbird120 7y agoNo it does not. The F35's radar absorbent material is much more baked into the actual airframe rather than being essentially a delicate coating.