DailyTech - Lockheed's F-22 Raptor Communications Too Limited, Capabilities Too Advanced for Libya Conflict
In other words, this dummass criticism is based upon ignorance and intellectual dishonesty.
An aircraft is an exercise in compromises between competing interests. For the F-22's limited communication issue, this is not so much about technical flaws or designers' stupidity but about the overriding need to maintain low EM emission of any type that the designers were compelled to subordinate communication flexibility to low EM signature.
This mean two possibilities:
- That the F-22's communication system could be 'stepped down' to allow it to communicate with older aircrafts at the expense of increased EM signature.
- That the older aircrafts' communication technology could be 'stepped up' to allow all aircrafts to communicate with each other over a much more secured system without compromising their positions, be they 'stealth' or 'non-stealth', after all, radio communication emissions are much more powerful than any radar reflections, singular or combined, coming off an aircraft.
Given the pace of upgrades of sub-systems the US continually perform on 'non-stealth' aircrafts, it would make eminent sense to 'step up' all older aircrafts to assure COMSEC advantage in combat. When Iranian and Chinese aircrafts start flaming down to Earth with their crews clueless on where the attackers are coming from, we will have the last laugh.