gambit
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It is a combination of both and at appropriate time to be backed up with sufficiently sophisticated data processing. In a high EM environment, being able to sense or pick up as many EM transmission sources as possible is worthless without the requisite data processing prowess to sort out what is useful from what is not, from one moment to the next. Part of that data processing is ranging information of a target and IR data does not provide that information.Yes Since It would be Forced to use His radar in Active mode and all the Stealth goes in Drain... Passive Sensors like IRST is a way to go... against Stealth planes and to keep ones plane Stealth.... May be It doesn't applies to Chinese design.. which is offcourse Unique and laws of Physics for the outside world does not apply... according to the self esteemed stealth/VLO expert we have here.
The solution is the extremely judicious use of the active sensor -- radar -- backed up intense data processing of raw passively collected data of any EM environment. The most easily processed data is direction, as in where is that signal coming from, the active sensor -- radar -- is then redirected towards that potential threat direction and use sparingly to gather basic target information. From that point on, if the target produce matches of certain criteria, such as range, intrusion into a threat 'bubble', or heading because if the target is inside said threat 'bubble' but is heading outward then said target can be considered irrelevant, then the active sensor use can be adjusted according to needs.
This is where the F-22 shines and the F-35 is even better.