Mithridates
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this images are taken recently (last month) in an air show in US. what fascinates me is the frontal fuselage structure. they constructed it completely vertically and in arrow or v shape and covered it by glass epoxy (to maintain mechanical features). i do not know about glass epoxy but around the world they make aircraft radomes of class fibers because first it is heat resistant and second it is transparent to radar. it means what radar sees of f-117's (actually most of the times does not see lol) is two flat surface. it means it maintains the mechanical benefits while reducing the radar reflection.
now another example of an stealth aircraft is x-47A. it is a delta flying wing. as i know US didn't even put that much of RAM on it. now look at it's RCS:
there are three point in that aircraft which have horrible radar reflection: 1- the + and - 60 degrees which in those cases the radar is perpendicular to the wings and thus the RCS is almost similar to an airliner of b-52 lol. however the vulnerable spot is very small and narrow to be a real weakness. other vulnerable spot is the engine exhaust (10 meters) which they didn't bother to make it stealthy. if we replace it with a saw tooth exhaust possibly the rearward RCS would decrease further.
the overall RCS of x-47A is around 0.01 sqm. f-117's RCS is 0.003-0.025 sqm. my point is we saw interceptor karrar. it was able to detect ababil drone (a piston engine drone) from 30 km away. so i assume it will be able to detect a fighter jet (<1000 degrees of c exhaust temperature) from farther distances. lets say 60 km. now if we manage to build an stealthy version of karrar drone and arm it with small and light weight missiles like israeli tamir missile of iron dome (40 km range ground launched and 90 kg) and program it to loiter like that unknown Iranian missile of houthis, we can solve our air superiority problem in case of conflict with US. we can add an IFF to them and enable them for swarm or even grouping against enemies.
this drone will be very cheap to make compared to fighter jets because of cheap material, cheap engines (microturbo=83k$,williams f107=190k$ and williams f112=300k$), no cockpit and no landing gear...
it's interception method will be similar to suicide karrar, it will detect enemy plane and subsequently moves toward it. if EO/IR sensor concludes that the target is getting close and the distance is decreasing (the image will get bigger), drone will launch a missile toward target. as the drone is expendable, the guidance will be the line of sight guidance (drone itself is locked on target and launches the missile and guides it simultaneously). drone locked on the target, and will continue to do so until missile's ARH or EO sensor detects the target and so the drone will disengage.
note the fact that the RCS of this drone will be around 0.01 sqm or less (if the issues i mentioned about x-47A get solved and we manage to build something like it). it means a beast of a plane like rafale (according to Thales systems detection range of 140 km for a 2.7 sqm target) will not be able to detect it until it's 35 km away!!!
now another example of an stealth aircraft is x-47A. it is a delta flying wing. as i know US didn't even put that much of RAM on it. now look at it's RCS:
there are three point in that aircraft which have horrible radar reflection: 1- the + and - 60 degrees which in those cases the radar is perpendicular to the wings and thus the RCS is almost similar to an airliner of b-52 lol. however the vulnerable spot is very small and narrow to be a real weakness. other vulnerable spot is the engine exhaust (10 meters) which they didn't bother to make it stealthy. if we replace it with a saw tooth exhaust possibly the rearward RCS would decrease further.
the overall RCS of x-47A is around 0.01 sqm. f-117's RCS is 0.003-0.025 sqm. my point is we saw interceptor karrar. it was able to detect ababil drone (a piston engine drone) from 30 km away. so i assume it will be able to detect a fighter jet (<1000 degrees of c exhaust temperature) from farther distances. lets say 60 km. now if we manage to build an stealthy version of karrar drone and arm it with small and light weight missiles like israeli tamir missile of iron dome (40 km range ground launched and 90 kg) and program it to loiter like that unknown Iranian missile of houthis, we can solve our air superiority problem in case of conflict with US. we can add an IFF to them and enable them for swarm or even grouping against enemies.
this drone will be very cheap to make compared to fighter jets because of cheap material, cheap engines (microturbo=83k$,williams f107=190k$ and williams f112=300k$), no cockpit and no landing gear...
it's interception method will be similar to suicide karrar, it will detect enemy plane and subsequently moves toward it. if EO/IR sensor concludes that the target is getting close and the distance is decreasing (the image will get bigger), drone will launch a missile toward target. as the drone is expendable, the guidance will be the line of sight guidance (drone itself is locked on target and launches the missile and guides it simultaneously). drone locked on the target, and will continue to do so until missile's ARH or EO sensor detects the target and so the drone will disengage.
note the fact that the RCS of this drone will be around 0.01 sqm or less (if the issues i mentioned about x-47A get solved and we manage to build something like it). it means a beast of a plane like rafale (according to Thales systems detection range of 140 km for a 2.7 sqm target) will not be able to detect it until it's 35 km away!!!