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No. Not a F-22 or F-35 are unlikely to actually be invisible. A B-2 bomber has a better chance. The talking heads from the military may talk about 'invisibilit
by natermer 7y ago
No. Not a F-22 or F-35 are unlikely to actually be invisible. A B-2 bomber has a better chance.
The talking heads from the military may talk about 'invisibility', but they are full of shit. Just propaganda for the tax payer.
The problem is the physical size of the jet. In order to absorb the radar the material needs to be the proper size in relation to the wavelength. A B-2 bomber is large enough to absorb useful radar frequencies, but F-35 or F-22 isn't.
What the F-35/F-22 stealth does get, however, is invisibility in the XHF and higher frequency ranges, which is what is used for radar guided missiles. So they will have a major advantage against ground and air launched long range missiles.
The F-22 also has good infrared suppression, which protects it against infrared guided missiles. F-35s have a large IR signature, so they are probably not much better then other US jets. Traditionally speaking it's IR weapons that have caused losses for USA airplanes in modern times.
At VHF and lower frequencies the F-22 and F-35 can be detected, but those radars don't offer enough resolution to make them particularly useful for missiles. People suspect that with multiple angles and computer algorithms it may be possible to target a jet that way, but who knows.
So if you were Russia and you detected something with VHF long range radar and then you pointed a shorter range XHF radard at it... and nothing shows up then you can be reasonably certain that it's a American stealth fighter jet. That doesn't mean they can do much about it, though.
To combat this it is suspected that Americans use a technique that involves 'ghosting' commercial airliner traffic to mask the signatures of their jets against the lower frequency, longer range, radar.
- SEJeff 7y agoIsrael in fact recently did this in Syria and succesfully targeted the Russian S200 and S300 systems. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45556290 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45556290
- zeristor 7y agoAccording to Wikipedia, most recently shot down aircraft have been helicopters falling to small arms, or course Wikipedia is dependent on what people write, but as far as I can tell there aren't that many jets being shot down by IR missiles. Unless that is your point of course https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_shootdowns#Iraq_War_(2003%E2%80%932011) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_shootdowns#Ir...
- walrus01 7y agoMost recent combat environments (Iraq war post-invasion, and Afghanistan) were not contested air space. The US has always had air superiority over those regions and the ability to fly AWACS planes, Predators, Reapers, Global Hawks and a whole bunch of other stuff around with very little risk of getting shot down. Aircraft operating low to the ground and on approach to small airfields, and helicopters, are of course vulnerable to short range rifle fire and MANPADs. There have been losses to that in Afghanistan. Modern NATO-equipped militaries haven't really encountered a semi modern air defense system since the brief bombing campaign against Serbia, in which they did manage to lose a F117 to a SAM.
- lazyguy 7y agoUSA hasn't really fought people capable of shooting down jets in a while. So the latest is generally the early 1990's with the combat in Iraq. The only stealth plane shot down that I am aware of was a F-117 shot down by short range SAM in the Kosovo war in 1999. It was a older 1960's missile design. Probably due to a large part of combination of dumb luck on the side of the SAM operator and the Airforce being lazy and having the jet fly predictable routine routes.
- wbl 7y agoIt was not dumb luck. He placed his site where he knew the doors were more likely to be open and hence increase the signature, and waited for that moment to switch on the radar and fire the shot.
- ceejayoz 7y agoDefinitely some dumb luck - they managed to catch it with the bomb bay doors open, which increased its radar signature dramatically.
- imtringued 7y agoThat's the lazy part.
- NikolaeVarius 7y ago
- throw0101a 7y ago> The talking heads from the military may talk about 'invisibility', but they are full of shit. Just propaganda for the tax payer. I think a distinction needs to be made between proverbial "invisibility" and stealth, and the technical definition. If general conversations included, say, backscatter coefficients you'd start seeing glazed eyes. Or perhaps area equivalence (square-footage? square-metrage?). > The problem is the physical size of the jet. Also: vertical stabilizers.
- ambicapter 7y agoStabilizers on these fighter jets are heavily canted, aren't they?
- greedo 7y agoYes, but that merely limits the damage to a small degree. Fighters need vertical stabilizers because they require higher maneuverability than flying wings. And current aerospace design capabilities can't overcome it, though bendable (wing warping technology) wings might eventually.
- throw0101a 7y agoBoeing's vaporware proposal for a 6G fighter has no VSes: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F/A-XX_Program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F/A-XX_Program
- greedo 7y agoYup, thrust vectoring will help add control authority. But vertical stabilizers don't necessarily contribute to the amount of G's an aircraft can pull. It depends on how they're measuring it. With an aircraft lacking VS, you could simply pull/push up down to get high G, or roll and do the same.
- toyg 7y ago> Americans use a technique that involves 'ghosting' commercial airliner traffic You mean flying under commercial traffic? That's what was likely the cause of French jets downing a civilian plane over Italy in 1980 - while trying to hit a Lybian MIG "hidden" under it. Reportedly, Lybian planes routinely did that in order to reach their servicing bases in Yugoslavia.
- Glawen 7y agoI did not know about this case, but good luck to the justice to know the truth. It might be a french or american airplane according to wikipedia. The french army is called in France "la grande muette" for a reason: it never speaks or admits anything (e.g. Bugaled Breizh ship). American also used this technique to fly military aircraft above french airspace while France was not part of NATO, it is only in 2007 with Sarkozy that France entered NATO (one of his many stupid move if you ask me)
- toyg 7y agoIndeed French authorities actively obstructed the search for truth over the decades, but to be fair, Italian and American authorities did exactly the same (or worse). Nobody wants to admit letting it happen, even if it was a mistake.
- greatpatton 7y agoFrance was always a member state of NATO since 1949. France was just not taking part in the integrated military command between the mid-60's to 2007, but did participate in all NATO mission (for instance Afghanistan, Bosnia, Serbia, etc.).
- sam_lowry_ 7y agoMH-17, anyone?
- sdinsn 7y ago> That's what was likely the cause of French jets downing a civilian plane over Italy in 1980 Note that the event is heavily disputed. The British Air Accidents Investigation Board claims that a missile strike does not match the wreckage analysis; instead stating a explosive device in the rear bathroom was the only possible cause.
- JohnBooty 7y agoTo combat this it is suspected that Americans use a technique that involves 'ghosting' commercial airliner traffic to mask the signatures of their jets against the lower frequency, longer range, radar. That sounds fascinating. A quick Googling bore no fruit for me. Can you elaborate, or point me in the direction of more information?
- moftz 7y agoThey can change their radar signature since the true signature isn't much of anything. They can mimic the signature of other planes and even move the signature making it seem like the spoofed aircraft is closer or further away than it really is. If you move the spoofed signature much closer to a radar installation, they might fire off a missile from another location that was previously hidden. Make the spoofed signature large enough and they may not see the anti-radiation missile heading towards them. There are also expendable versions of this tech that can be dropped from a plane like chaff, further increasing the distance between the spoofed signature and the true one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_radio_frequency_memory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_radio_frequency_memory https://www.militaryaerospace.com/computers/article/16726118/navy-continues-buying-radarspoofing-electronic-warfare-ew-equipment-from-mercury-systems https://www.militaryaerospace.com/computers/article/16726118... https://www.c4isrnet.com/electronic-warfare/2019/05/15/can-new-spoofing-tech-give-us-aircraft-a-shroud-in-the-clouds/ https://www.c4isrnet.com/electronic-warfare/2019/05/15/can-n...
- 420codebro 7y agoSomething I don't understand about DRFM is doesn't your physical bird skin reflect a signature at a physical rate of (Y), where DRFM will only be as good as (Y)(N) where N is always some percentage above Y? TLDR: won't it appear as two different energy returns/tracks (one from your physical aircraft, the other from your DRFM-replay source)?
- acomjean 7y agoIts a cat and mouse game between airplanes and radars. Radars are usually arrays of small radars now that can move the beam without even moving, chirp the frequecy and do all sorts of weird things. I wrote OS software to help control them years ago, which was interesting. http://www.radartutorial.eu/02.basics/Stepped%20Chirp%20Radar.en.html http://www.radartutorial.eu/02.basics/Stepped%20Chirp%20Rada... its an interesting exercise in signal processing. there are lots of books on the subject: And hey! my radar made a cover. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=radar&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss https://www.amazon.com/s?k=radar&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss
- baybal2 7y ago> So if you were Russia A much more probable scenario would be of its airfield being blown up by something like Tochka or Luna even before most of the planes will have a chance to sortie. This is why there is a natural scepticism of airforce centric warfare: a tank will not fall out of the sky the moment its logistic supply is cut.