Possible ULTRA-Stealth bomber in development?

[JustAFriend]

http://aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_generic.jsp?channel=dti&id=news/DTI-Bomber.xml&headline=Ultra%20Stealth

How low can LO go? One paper, co-authored by a principal in DenMar Inc., the company founded by Stealth pioneer Denys Overholser, refers to the development of fasteners for a body with an RCS of -70 dB./sq. meter -- one-thousandth of the -40 dB. associated with the JSF, and one-tenth that of a mosquito.


Could also answer a lot more of the UFO stories based on triangle/delta shapes....

[mugaliens]

"We have arrived at the point where a single rain drop will increase the radar cross-section a thousand fold."

Well, not quite. That would be absurd.

But there is most certainly a point of diminishing returns, and I'm of the opinion that we're either nearing it, or have surpassed it. At that point, we need to say, "Ok! Ok! Enough already! Isn't it enough that you can't distinguish this mosquito from one of the billions of others flying within a one square mile radius?"

[HenrikOlsen]

I'm reminded about the problem they had with the first stealth ships, they showed up on radar as black spots in the clutter of waves:)

[captain swoop]

Just look for the Mosquite flying at several hundred miles an hour.

[Delvo]

there is most certainly a point of diminishing returns, and I'm of the opinion that we're either nearing it, or have surpassed it.One of the various ways that pilots of other planes have expressed their frustration from flying against an F-22 is "I can see the thing right outside my canopy, but I still can't put my weapons on it because it still isn't on my radar!" When you can get well within visual range and still can't radar it, most of the point of having a radar is gone, since the radar's job is to let you detect things farther away than you can see. In other words, without stealth, radar range is much longer than visual range, but stealth at this point is making it shorter than visual range. So by the time you can radar it, you'd have to be ludicrously close, which makes the fight a visual-range engagement anyway, so even more stealth would not change that; it would still be a visual-range engagement.

That seems to be the logic that the Air Force used as well, when they rejected the YF-23 for the 22. It was even stealthier than the 22, but the Air Force wanted to make sure the next fighter also had other things going for it as well, and favored the plane that had them over the stealthier one that didn't excel so much in those other areas.

It seems ironic that the comparison they made with those numbers was to a "JSF" (F-35) instead of an F-22 (whose equivalent name would be "ATF"). Although the 35 is the 22's little brother with a bunch of stuff in common with it, it's also the one they deliberately cut some corners on to control expenses, and that includes cutting back on stealth to some extent. Why didn't they compare this new thing to the stealthiest production plane out there? To get a bigger number? Anyway, the 35 would be another example of your principle that we're already at the point where you can deliberately not make something as stealthy as it could be and still count it as a stealth machine.

And so might this new bomber be. The article isn't really about stealth; it's about new bomber development. Certainly the next bomber will be stealthier than the first stealth bomber was, but I don't think they're going to go overboard obsessing about stealth and forgetting other features. (Or at least if they will, this article doesn't indicate it.)

[Larry Jacks]

I posted on this subject (http://www.bautforum.com/off-topic-babbling/74755-may-explain-why-northrup-bought-scaled-composites.html) in late May. Perhaps the threads should be merged.

[Veeger]

I'm wondering - do we have radar that can detect them? By this I mean, while projects such as next generation bombers are high profile to aviation enthusiasts, what about the less popular "next generation radar" projects? It wouldn't surprise me if we had radar/computer systems which could analyze the scatter returns and recreate an image of a stealth aircraft.

[Larry Jacks]

The whole point of stealth is to generate such low returns that the plane can't be detected. In earlier designs, the primary concern was to reduce radar returns from certain aspects such as from the front and sides. With more powerful computer modeling technology and materials, "all-aspect stealth" across a broad band of frequencies is the focus now.

Some have claimed that a bi-static radar (http://www.popsci.com/military-aviation-space/article/2001-12/stealth-threat) can track stealth aircraft. That may be the reason why the Air Force is wanting to develop a -70 dB RCS aircraft.

[Veeger]

From what I know of stealth (quite little, I confess), most of the technology depends on scattering the radar energy at oblique angles rather than returning it. There may be some parts of the airframe than can absorb the energy but I am sure that is classified. A hypothethical NG Radar may be able to pick up the scattered energy as it returned off background objects (I don't know, clouds, ionosphere) and through coordination of the outgoing signal with the incoming angles measured by an array, apply appropriate mathematics and pinpoint the source of the scattered energy. Am I in the realm of science fiction?

[captain swoop]

Remember at night the visualrange is somewhat less than in the day

[zerocold]

One of the various ways that pilots of other planes have expressed their frustration from flying against an F-22 is "I can see the thing right outside my canopy, but I still can't put my weapons on it because it still isn't on my radar!"

That is cleary an overhyppe.

I have seen a picture where a f-22 is locked on radar by another aircraft. These stealth tales to me looks like a big "woowoo", and that picture only came on public because seems that the pilot was kinda "funny dude"

An f-117 was wiped over Servia, and before that incident was a huge stealth "woowoo" due the GW...funny that the guys that took down the main radar facilities on Iraq were the Apaches divisions, and not the Nighthawk

[BigDon]

Zero, the 117 was brought down by mass AAA firing straight up with timed fuses. A single high caliber AAA round is good for at least a 100 yard hole in the sky. Wonder Woman's Invisable Jet would have been brought down by the same method. The fault was is the planning, not the aircraft.

We have more Apaches than 117's, who were not idle during this time. Are you suggesting stealth tech is all hype?

[BigDon]

Good God!

I'm defending chAirforce birds!

[Larry Jacks]

They also knew when that F-117 was going to fly overhead due to sympathizers tipping them off when it took off.

The F-117 was 1st or 2nd generation stealth (the SR-71 had some stealth technology built in). Planes like the F-22 not only have much higher performance than the F-117, they're reportedly more stealthy.

If they can see you and you can't see them, you're in trouble.

[Delvo]

That is cleary an overhyppe.It was not coming from the F-22 people; it was coming from a pilot of something else (a Typhoon, I think).

I have seen a picture where a f-22 is locked on radar by another aircraft.There is exactly one possible source for such an image. Missile lock is declared a "win" in training and competition events. Only one has been achieved against an F-22 so far, at an event where enemy planes were allowed to fly out of the zone after being "shot down" and re-enter to simulate new enemy planes arriving; the F-22 pilot ignored an F-16 that he knew it had already been "shot down" because he didn't think it had "regenerated". I don't know how close that F-16 was, what aspect of the F-22 was presented to it, or which kind of sensor got the lock. That's nowhere near enough on which to base a claim that some other pilot in some other situation was lying when he expressed his frustration at the F-22 "defying your ability to put weapons on it", particularly when others have expressed similar things in different not-as-quotable wording and F-22s have had hundreds of "wins" to that one loss.

An f-117 was wiped over ServiaSerbia... and a much less stealthy plane. (And even with that, I'm not sure they ever really got a sensor lock on it instead of just getting absurdly lucky with a blindfolded-shotgun approach.)

[Veeger]

I don't know if the 117's can be equipt with HARM missles, probably, but the mission required to take out radar installations are intentially designed to attract attention and entice the enemy into switching on the radar. The aircraft on this mission likely flew lower and slower, to accomplish the task, and were therefore, more vulnerable.

Also, while it is never nice to lose aircraft, loss of one or more 117's impacts not only the strategy of the operation but also the psychological advantage of "invisible" aircraft. Therefore, I am sure the mission planners wanted to protect them.

[BigDon]

Veeger,

I presumed a mission brief that lacked key intelligence. I didn't know Mr. Jacks' information.

[Veeger]

The F-117 lost over in the Kosovo mission was apparently shot down by a missle which exploded in the vicinty of the airplane, much like a lucky AAA shot. But the Serbians did do their homework and figured out how to briefly get radar returns and determine the flight paths:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-117_Nighthawk
One F-117 has been lost in combat, to the Serbian army. On 27 March 1999, during the Kosovo War, the 3rd Battalion of the 250th Missile Brigade under the command of Colonel Zoltan Dani, equipped with the Isayev S-125 'Neve' (NATO designation SA-3 'Goa') anti-aircraft missile system, downed a F-117A callsign "Vega 31," serial number 82-806 with a Serbian improved Neva-M missile.[28][29] According to NATO Commander Wesley Clark and other NATO generals, Serb air defenses found that they could detect F-117s with their radars operating on unusually long wavelengths. This made them visible on radar screens for short times.

Reportedly several SA-3s were launched, one of which detonated in close proximity to the F-117A, forcing the pilot to eject. According to an interview, Zoltán Dani was able to keep most of his missile sites intact and had a number of spotters spread out looking for F-117s and other NATO aircraft. The commanders and crews of the SAMs guessed the flight paths of earlier F-117A strikes from rare radar spottings and positioned their SAM launchers and spotters accordingly. It is believed that the SA-3 crews and spotters were able to locate and track F-117A 82-806 visually, probably with the help of infra-red and night vision systems. He also claimed that his battery shot down an F-16 as well.

Note that spotters on the ground were employed which can only occur when the planes are close to the ground or flying in daylight, unless infrared is used as suggested in the article. Having been to Aviano airbase as a civilian, the base is constantly surveilled by people parked in cars on village streets outside the fence line. I assumed most of them were aviation nuts who loved to watch jets come and go. I suppose in times of combat some could just as easily be spotters. One could drive the distance between Serbia and Italy in far less than a day.

[Kaptain K]

Call out the "Gillian squad"! There's no such word as "surveilled"! The place was either being surveyed or was under surveillance.

[RalofTyr]

Zero, the 117 was brought down by mass AAA firing straight up with timed fuses. A single high caliber AAA round is good for at least a 100 yard hole in the sky. Wonder Woman's Invisable Jet would have been brought down by the same method. The fault was is the planning, not the aircraft.

We have more Apaches than 117's, who were not idle during this time. Are you suggesting stealth tech is all hype?


Wow Don, you were either the B117 pilot or you were fighting for the Serbs to know that.

They use of Apaches during the second gulf war (remember the Persian Gulf War) was probably more political within the military than technological. I want to fight too syndrome.


Radar is just a luxury used...Stealth planes will show up nicely from the ground using IR. However, once lasers because more effective, air superiority will be history.

[BigDon]

Ral, radar guided artillery, then SAMs were supposed to render war planes obsolete. I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you.

[captain swoop]

Back in the 1960s manned aircraft were officialy obsolete according to the UK Govt. Seems they are still around.

[Ilya]

Wow Don, you were either the B117 pilot or you were fighting for the Serbs to know that.

BigDon's account, almost word for word, was in "Aviation Week" few months after the F117 was shot down. I read it back then.

[Larry Jacks]

And keep in mind that the F-117s were phased out of the inventory in April. The F-22 can do everything the F-117 could do and much more, plus it is more stealthy.

Technology doesn't stand still. Someone invents a better measure (missiles) and someone else invents a countermeasure (stealth). The missiles get better and so does the stealth. This has been going on continuously since 1939, if not earlier.

The F-117 might've had a lower IR signature than most other planes due to its unique jet exhaust system. It's hard to hide the pivoting exhaust nozzles on an F-22.

[Veeger]

Call out the "Gillian squad"! There's no such word as "surveilled"! The place was either being surveyed or was under surveillance.

You sure about that Kap'n? It shows up in my online dictionaries as the past tense of surveil.

:confused:

[Kaptain K]

You sure about that Kap'n? It shows up in my online dictionaries as the past tense of surveil.

:confused:

In most dictionaries including MS spell check, surveil isn't a word either.

[Delvo]

It's specialized jargon used by a particular group: military professionals. It's common for relatively exclusive groups of people like that to have their own words that don't appear in "outisde" sources.

[captain swoop]

sur·veil /sərˈveɪl/ [ser-veyl]
–verb (used with object), -veilled, -veil·ling. to place under surveillance.
[Origin: 1965–70; back formation from surveillance]

Random House Unabridged Dictionary
---

sur·veil (sər-vāl')
tr.v. sur·veilled, sur·veil·ling, sur·veils
To keep under surveillance.
[Back-formation from surveillance.]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
---

surveil

verb
keep under surveillance

WordNet® 3.0, © 2006 by Princeton University.

[Kaptain K]

OK! I'm an old [fuddy-duddy]! It still clangs in my mind! :rolleyes:

[Trebuchet]

Slightly on-topic, I hope the new secret bomber has a better pitot-static system than the B2!

[RalofTyr]

Ral, radar guided artillery, then SAMs were supposed to render war planes obsolete. I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you.

I'd say that missiles are still in it's infancy. I can imagine a smart missile that visually ID an enemy fighter, day or night and isn't fooled by stealth, chaff or flares that can make complex decisions ten times faster than a human pilot. That could well do to air combat what the machine gun did to infantry combat at the turn of the 20th century.

[Larry Jacks]

I've been studying aircraft most of my life and can identify hundreds of types on sight. Still, visual identification - especially at distance and/or during marginal weather - is quite challengine. An aircraft's appearance can change dramatically depending on which direction it is heading relative to the observer, it's attitude, exernal stores (fuel tanks, bombs, missiles, ECM pods, etc), paint scheme, etc.

The human mind is an excellent pattern recognition system and it can still be fooled quite easily as in the case back in the 1990s when American Air Force pilots confused Blackhawk helicopters for Hinds and shot them down. Looking at the two helicopters, it's hard to see how they made the mistake. However, I learned how difficult it could be.

Back around 1986, I worked on a project called JVID (http://www.dodgamecommunity.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=19) (Joint Visual Identification) to develop 3D training tools to teach aircraft recognition to fighter pilots. Our program used high-resolution renderings of different aircraft (heavy emphasis on helicopters) that could be rotated to examine them from different perspectives. You could put two aircraft side by side and examine them. Blackhawk helicopters sometimes carry drop tanks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:UH-60_dimensions.png) to extend their range (the shot down ones were carrying the tanks). When you look at a rear 3/4 view of a Blackhawk with tanks side by side with a Hind (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Mil_Mi-24_HIND.png), it's hard to tell the difference. Our software also included carefully generated animations of the aircraft models flying a specified flight path while the viewer simulated approaching the aircraft in typical fighter approaches. Details that seem obvious are very hard to pick out from several miles away with a closing speed of several hundred knots and against a background. A fighter pilot only has a few seconds to spot the aircraft and make the determination. It isn't easy under the best of conditions. A missile would have a much faster closing speed so the challenge would be even greater.

[Delvo]

BTW, "stealth" includes not just tricks to make the thing hard to spot and track by radar, but also to make it hard to spot and track by other methods such as IR and visible light. It's why the two new stealth fighters (F-22 & F-35) are a dull gray instead of shiny, black, white, or with other bolder colors marking their edges as fighters have often been before, and it's why the 35 is lighter on the bottom than on the top (because the sky is lighter than the ground) and it's why the 22 is painted in camouflage-like amorphous splotches of slightly different shades of gray (so the main color region boundaries are random shapes instead of crisp edges that look like a plane's shape).

[captain swoop]

In WW2 for the North Atlantic it was fund that white was the best colour for a ship to be at night. It's never completely dark and a dark coloured ship shows up agains the background whereas a white one blends in by reflecting the light around it. Aircraft are usualy camouflaged to be hidden from above and below, if you are fying in daylight the colours needed would be different on the upper and lower surfaces.

[Larry Jacks]

The F-117 and B-2 incorporated IR suppression in their designs. It doesn't appear that was such a priority on the F-22 and F-35. It's hard to do much IR suppression on such powerful engines without compromising other performance factors. They may use the placement of control surfaces to block IR somewhat. It's also possible that they decided IR wasn't as important. You have to get relatively close to get an IR missile lock. If you look at IR guided missiles, few have a range more than 5 km. If you can avoid getting that close to an IR threat such as by shooting them down before they can get lock on you, then maybe you don't care about IR so much. Or, maybe there's IR suppression in the planes that isn't so obvioud.

The F-117 and B-2 are black. They're designed for night operations only. However, they learned back in WWII that black isn't the best color for night camoflage. Some of the planes back then were painted a splotted gray scheme as shown in this color photo of an He-219 (http://www.geocities.com/lastdingo/aviation/he219-8.jpg). When the F-117 was in development, Lockheed reportedly told the Air Force that the best color for night operations was some sort of pastel or baby blue color. The Air Force refused to accept a pastel plane so the color was black. Gray is actually a better color for night operations.

[Veeger]

The human mind is an excellent pattern recognition system and it can still be fooled quite easily as in the case back in the 1990s when American Air Force pilots confused Blackhawk helicopters for Hinds and shot them down. Looking at the two helicopters, it's hard to see how they made the mistake. However, I learned how difficult it could be.


Interesting project Larry. I wonder why technology hasn't solved the friendly fire problem, at least with "smart" weapons. Seems a smart weapon could send out a radio query to its intended target, and if the target answers with the correct coded sequence, its friendly. Or better still, the pilots could do the same from their aircraft before launching their weapons.

[captain swoop]

The Air Force refused to accept a pastel plane so the color was black. Gray is actually a better color for night operations.

I ind this hard to believe. I thought they had special coatings to reduce IR and Radar signatures.

[RalofTyr]

Do the two new stealth fighters, carry air to air missiles that have their own radar tracking system or do they have to use radar painting from their jets? This means that in order to get a lock, they'd have to paint the target with radar waves. If they have to paint the target, their position is given aways. All an enemy fighter has to do is fire an anti-radiation/IR guided missile at the stealth fighter. Sure, maybe the stealth fighter would detect the missile and turn off it's radar, however, it could still track it via IR.

[GeorgeLeRoyTirebiter]

Interesting project Larry. I wonder why technology hasn't solved the friendly fire problem, at least with "smart" weapons. Seems a smart weapon could send out a radio query to its intended target, and if the target answers with the correct coded sequence, its friendly. Or better still, the pilots could do the same from their aircraft before launching their weapons.

You've just described an IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) transponder, a technology that's been in use since the end of WWII. The problem with it is that it's far from foolproof. It doesn't work if an aircraft is using the wrong 'code of the day,' or its transponder is broken.

[captain swoop]

IFF was in use in WW2 for Fighter Direction, it wasn't Air to Air but Ground to Air and was used to help Vector fighter patrols onto enemy aircraft. Just a few miles rfom where i live was a Radar station at Goldsborough on the coast near Whitby. It worked as part of the Danby Beacon Chain Home station. Goldsborough was opened in the middle of the war and had the Chain Home Low and later the Fighter Direction station. After the War the Danby Beacon Chain Home was dismantled and Goldsborough was being converted into a 'Rotor' station but a fire in the half completed underground control resulted in it being abandoned. Rotor was obsolete before it was put into use as the new generation of fast Jet bombers meant that the old system of a Radar Station relaying Vectors back to a central Control Station who passed the plot on to the FIghter Control couldn't keep up with the action anymore. Goldsborough still has the flooded underground bunker but all the surface buildings have long since gone

[tdvance]

From Merriam Webster online--it's a 1914 backformation--so it's a word coined in 1914.



surveilled
One entry found.

surveil


Main Entry:
sur·veil Listen to the pronunciation of surveil
Pronunciation:
\sər-ˈvāl\
Function:
transitive verb
Inflected Form(s):
sur·veilled; sur·veil·ling
Etymology:
back-formation from surveillance
Date:
1914

: to subject to surveillance

[Larry Jacks]

I ind this hard to believe. I thought they had special coatings to reduce IR and Radar signatures.

They do have special coatings to reduce radar signatures. The B-2 and F-117 also had extensive capabilities to reduce the IR signature (not so sure about F-22 and F-35). What I was talking about with the pastel verses black paint was trying to make the planes harder to locate and track visually. Since the plane operate at night, the Air Force ordered them to be black. However, black isn't the best color to make a plane harder to spot visually at night. This was a lesson learned in WWII.

[Larry Jacks]

Do the two new stealth fighters, carry air to air missiles that have their own radar tracking system or do they have to use radar painting from their jets? This means that in order to get a lock, they'd have to paint the target with radar waves. If they have to paint the target, their position is given aways. All an enemy fighter has to do is fire an anti-radiation/IR guided missile at the stealth fighter. Sure, maybe the stealth fighter would detect the missile and turn off it's radar, however, it could still track it via IR.

The B-2, F-22 and F-35 carry very sophisticated (and highly classified) radar systems that allow them to operate with a low probability of detection. The F-22 and F-35 can carry a variety of missiles including the AIM-9 Sidewinder (heat seeker) for close in work and the AIM-120 AAMRAM for longer ranges. The AIM-120 includes its own radar seeker (some say its the functional equivalent of the radar on an F-16) but that may only be used for the last seconds before impact. The launching plane tracks the enemy planes using its own radar and/or radar info sent via data link from another source such as an AWACS plane to evaluate the targets and launch the missiles.

[GeorgeLeRoyTirebiter]

IFF was in use in WW2 for Fighter Direction, it wasn't Air to Air but Ground to Air and was used to help Vector fighter patrols onto enemy aircraft.[...]

Hey, we've come 180°! The big concern now is air-to-ground friendly fire. There's a lot of work currently being done to get the Army's "blue force tracking" data into cockpits to help aircraft identify friendly ground units.

[Delvo]

Do the two new stealth fighters, carry air to air missiles that have their own radar tracking system or do they have to use radar painting from their jets? This means that in order to get a lock, they'd have to paint the target with radar waves. If they have to paint the target, their position is given aways. All an enemy fighter has to do is fire an anti-radiation/IR guided missile at the stealth fighter. Sure, maybe the stealth fighter would detect the missile and turn off it's radar, however, it could still track it via IR.

The B-2, F-22 and F-35 carry very sophisticated (and highly classified) radar systems that allow them to operate with a low probability of detection. The F-22 and F-35 can carry a variety of missiles including the AIM-9 Sidewinder (heat seeker) for close in work and the AIM-120 AAMRAM for longer ranges. The AIM-120 includes its own radar seeker (some say its the functional equivalent of the radar on an F-16) but that may only be used for the last seconds before impact. The launching plane tracks the enemy planes using its own radar and/or radar info sent via data link from another source such as an AWACS plane to evaluate the targets and launch the missiles.

Also, the 22's radar has a few other tricks up its sleeve, which I haven't yet been able to find out whether the 35 shares or not. (I presume it has some but not all.) One is perpetually shifting frequencies like the Federation firing phasers at the Borg, so that even if a signal of some kind is received, it isn't consistent enough to follow. Another is just having a longer range so it's seeing enemies from farther away than the enemies can see even an active radar. Another is the option to emit only in a narrow, aimed beam rather than lighting up the entire local environment like a floodlight, so other radars outside of the line the pilot's aiming his/her radar at don't receive the signal. Another is emitting a blast so powerful that it essentially acts as another kind of weapon, damaging receiving radars, like a shining a bright light at your enemy's eyes to blind him. Another is using digital pulses for communication among themselves instead of standard radio, which includes networking sensors with each other so that they all share each other's sensors and each one sees what every other one sees even if only some of the radar or other sensor systems in the group are running. Depending on the meaning of a word, one more radar trick in these planes might be what they call "designating targets" not only for each other but even for friendly previous-generation jets... although I'm not sure whether "designating" indicates a technical matter with the radar targeting systems or just means that, in a mixed squadron, the 22 pilots' better situational awareness would make them the team leaders over the earlier planes, putting them in a position to tell the other pilots where to go.

[captain swoop]

IFF and other ID sometimes doesn't help, the US Air Force attacked and killed a British patrol in the First Gulf War even though they had identity panels on the vehicles and the Aircraft made 2 passes to get a good visual ID before destroying the Warrior APCs.

As for the Air Force being so stupid as to want black paint rather than pastel because they think it works better at night. Can you show me a Cite for that. Extensive work has been done on Camo for at least 60 years, Why would the manufacturers of the aircraft be advising the Air Force?

[Larry Jacks]

As for the Air Force being so stupid as to want black paint rather than pastel because they think it works better at night. Can you show me a Cite for that. Extensive work has been done on Camo for at least 60 years, Why would the manufacturers of the aircraft be advising the Air Force?

It isn't that they think black works better at night - although the fact that it doesn't is counter-intuitative - it's reportedly that they thought a pastel plane was, well, unmanly or something.

I've read the claim about not wanting pastel planes for many years. I'll skim into Ben Rich's "Skunk Works" to see if there is any mention about the color.

[RalofTyr]

...Another is emitting a blast so powerful that it essentially acts as another kind of weapon, damaging receiving radars, like a shining a bright light at your enemy's eyes to blind him.

Could that not be used by enemy ground units? I mean, if a fighter jet can carry enough power to blind or damage enemy receivers on the ground, then the ground could carry far more powerful radar that could essentially blind or disable the radar and tracking systems on the F-22 and F-35 without knowing their exact position, only if they're in the region or not.

[Stuart van Onselen]

the ground could carry far more powerful radar that could essentially blind or disable the radar and tracking systems on the F-22 and F-35 without knowing their exact position, only if they're in the region or not.
Lemme stick my neck out and make a guess:

I'd guess the blinding of enemy radar involves knowing where he is, and sending a concentrated beam at him. A ground unit trying to blind an F22 that he can't detect would have to use a very wide beam, thousands of times more powerful than the one the F22 is using.

And since the F22 is using a frequency-hopping radar, that ground-based unit would need to simultaneously broadcast on thousands of frequencies. So now it needs ~1 million times the power of the F22. Just not feasible, I would guess.

(And if my estimates are wrong, I would think they are on the low side. It depends on how high the jet is flying (different for every scenario), and how broad the range of frequencies that radar uses (if I knew that, the CIA would be coming for me! :) )

[mugaliens]

One of the various ways that pilots of other planes have expressed their frustration from flying against an F-22 is "I can see the thing right outside my canopy, but I still can't put my weapons on it because it still isn't on my radar!" When you can get well within visual range and still can't radar it, most of the point of having a radar is gone, since the radar's job is to let you detect things farther away than you can see. In other words, without stealth, radar range is much longer than visual range, but stealth at this point is making it shorter than visual range. So by the time you can radar it, you'd have to be ludicrously close, which makes the fight a visual-range engagement anyway, so even more stealth would not change that; it would still be a visual-range engagement.

Not to mention the fact that it would never get to the point of it being a visual-range engagement, as the F-22 can spot the F-16 (and even more modern aircraft) on radar long before either can see one another.

That seems to be the logic that the Air Force used as well, when they rejected the YF-23 for the 22. It was even stealthier than the 22, but the Air Force wanted to make sure the next fighter also had other things going for it as well, and favored the plane that had them over the stealthier one that didn't excel so much in those other areas.

Today's modern fighter has to be able to do several things well: Patrol (CAP), drop a variety of today's smart weapons, including the newer, small couple-hundred pounders, without being seen on either ingress or egress, and engage enemy aircraft and win.

The F-22 is more deterrant than anything else. Hopefully, any opposing pilot worth his weight in fright will bugout the moment he's lit up by the F-22's search radar.

It seems ironic that the comparison they made with those numbers was to a "JSF" (F-35) instead of an F-22 (whose equivalent name would be "ATF"). Although the 35 is the 22's little brother with a bunch of stuff in common with it, it's also the one they deliberately cut some corners on to control expenses, and that includes cutting back on stealth to some extent. Why didn't they compare this new thing to the stealthiest production plane out there? To get a bigger number? Anyway, the 35 would be another example of your principle that we're already at the point where you can deliberately not make something as stealthy as it could be and still count it as a stealth machine.

The F-22 needs stealth to accomplish it's mission, which is geared towards a first attack, before we have control of the skies.

The F-36 comes in later, primarily as an air-to-ground weapons delivery platform and as an area denial fighter, after we're already in control of the skies and have decimated the enemy's ability to launch SAMs against our aircraft.

And so might this new bomber be. The article isn't really about stealth; it's about new bomber development. Certainly the next bomber will be stealthier than the first stealth bomber was, but I don't think they're going to go overboard obsessing about stealth and forgetting other features. (Or at least if they will, this article doesn't indicate it.)

I'm wondering if it'll be a stealth UCAV bomber... We rarely bomb on anything but GPS coordinates or a lased target these days anyway.

[mugaliens]

The F-117 and B-2 incorporated IR suppression in their designs. It doesn't appear that was such a priority on the F-22 and F-35. It's hard to do much IR suppression on such powerful engines without compromising other performance factors.

I'm wondering if they'll ever develop a STRES SAM (steer toward's roaring engines sound surface to air missile)?

[mugaliens]

Also, the 22's radar has a few other tricks up its sleeve, which I haven't yet been able to find out whether the 35 shares or not. (I presume it has some but not all.)

I know not of the F-22's specs, but I can brainstorm what quite a few of them might be! Frequency hopping, varying the PRF (pulse repetition frequency), varying the transmit power, using phased array for either spotlight or fan (sweep) modes to determine relative altitude as well as azimuth, automatic "lock and tune" whereby the radar does a quick sweep (perhaps just one vert and one horiz sweep) before it picks out targets and does the "lock and tune," a "wait and see" whereby it never continuously transmits, but does so based on an algorithm to minimize emissions, and, tadaa! The last idea I could conceive is multi-platform link to increase synthetic aperature by synching and using the radars of all the planes in formation. With enough resolution, one may be able to identify the aircraft type, and possibly it's armament, from a few synchronized sweeps of their radars.

And hey, Air Force, if I thought of one that the boys at Lockheed didn't, keep it and incorporate it into the next Mod.

One is perpetually shifting frequencies like the Federation firing phasers at the Borg, so that even if a signal of some kind is received, it isn't consistent enough to follow.

LOL - that's precisely what I was thinking about when I came up with the above!

...although I'm not sure whether "designating" indicates a technical matter with the radar targeting systems or just means that, in a mixed squadron

It's basically telling the computer that the bogey is now considered a viable target, giving the computer permission to compute firing solutions and lock whatever weapon is selected onto the target.

I learned that from a video game, believe it or not...

[Larry Jacks]

Yesterday, I read about half of Ben Rich's excellent book, "Shunk Works" and didn't see any reference to the F-117's color. It did mention the RAM coatings several times. In one case during early testing, the RCS had increased without explaination. They checked with Dupont and found that the paint's formulation had been changed without telling anyone at Lockheed. Stealth is that sensitive.

Perhaps the ferrite materials in the paint contribute to the black color. Perhaps the thing about the pastel colors is an urban legend (I've heard it for many years and I'm pretty sure I've read it in some fairly authoritative sources). During WWII, both the British and Germans did a lot of night operations. They learned that black isn't the best color except under certain conditions. A mottled gray seemed to be the best option.

[captain swoop]

Royal Navy Warships were painted in Pastel blue and pink as part of several Camo schemes. Also some Desert Camo on Tanks included Pastel shades.

[aquitaine]

The F-22 is more deterrant than anything else.

Not to mention something of a "budget buster".

To the best of anyone's knowledge is the F22 actually being used in Iraq?

I also recall reading on Wikipedia (I know not the best source) that it is supposed to have wi-fi access capability. If this is true (which it might not be), then can anyone say "backdoor"?

[cjl]

I don't think it is being used in Iraq, as it isn't the best choice as a ground support aircraft, and we aren't fighting any significant enemy air forces (the job the 22 was designed for).

[Larry Jacks]

The F-22 is still very new. The pilots are still learning how to best use it for it's intended missions such as establishing air supremacy (not needed in Iraq) and killing highly protected targets (ditto). For that matter, the F-15C isn't being used much in Iraq either because it is set up for the air supremacy mission. The F-22 opens up all sorts of opportunities that simply didn't exist in a fighter before. This means new tactics, techniques, and procedures have to be developed and learned.

Back in 1991, the B-1 wasn't used in the first Gulf War. At the time, it was standing on nuclear alert. Also, it wasn't really set up for conventional missions at the time. During the 1990s, the planes were equipped for conventional operations. The plane is routinely flying combat operations today (it can carry a bunch of smart bombs and can respond to a call for support very quickly). According to this Smithsonian Air & Space magazine article (http://www.airspacemag.com/military-aviation/The_Bone_is_Back.html), the B-1 is very busy today.

[RalofTyr]

Lemme stick my neck out and make a guess:

I'd guess the blinding of enemy radar involves knowing where he is, and sending a concentrated beam at him. A ground unit trying to blind an F22 that he can't detect would have to use a very wide beam, thousands of times more powerful than the one the F22 is using.

And since the F22 is using a frequency-hopping radar, that ground-based unit would need to simultaneously broadcast on thousands of frequencies. So now it needs ~1 million times the power of the F22. Just not feasible, I would guess.

(And if my estimates are wrong, I would think they are on the low side. It depends on how high the jet is flying (different for every scenario), and how broad the range of frequencies that radar uses (if I knew that, the CIA would be coming for me! :) )

If it emits any EMR transmissions, it can be detected. If it can be detected, it can be triangulated. And if it can be triangulated, it can be targeted.

[Larry Jacks]

Spread spectrum communications technology (http://sss-mag.com/ss.html) has allowed for signals that appear to be nothing but noise. Given the long development time and incredible amounts of money spent on developing for the B-2, F-22, and F-35, it isn't too hard to believe they've achieved similar results with the radar systems on those planes. They didn't put any radar system on the F-117 because low probability of intercept radar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_probability_of_intercept) (LPIR) technology didn't exist when the plane was designed 30 years ago.