The F-22 Raptor thread

[Juice]

will a fighter being stealth(target) makes any difference in detection range of missiles on seeker ?

will a fighter being stealth(target) makes any difference in detection range of missiles on seeker ?

One of the main strengths of stealth...

 

[gambit]

will a fighter being stealth(target) makes any difference in detection range of missiles on seeker ?

Yes. In radar detection, NOTHING is invisible. The US never said that the F-117 or any 5th generation fighter as 'invisible'. It may surprise you to see me saying that considering no one on this forum is more enthusiastic about 'stealth' than I am. However, the issue is EFFECTIVE detection distance or range. The word 'effective' here mean the receiver is able to have a longevity radar lock on the target. The longer this distance, the greater the time for the receiver to formulate a response, be it fight or flight (run away). Being 'low radar observable' or 'stealth' reduces this effective distance.

If an adversary is looking for the F-22 via active transmissions, he will reveal himself because of said transmissions long before his radar can have that effective radar detection of the F-22. So his missiles are not relevant anyway. The worst scenario for him is that the F-22 pilot decides to go head on, confident that the F-22's ECM analysis of those transmissions will cue the best time for missile launch, and the AMRAAM is in beamrider mode, meaning the missile is using those active seeking transmissions as a guide. In essence, the F-22 can destroy its opponent completely in EM passive mode.

This scenario is not as outlandish as you might think...

The Last Ace - Mark Bowden - The Atlantic

OVER CESAR RODRIGUEZ’S desk hangs a macabre souvenir of his decades as a fighter pilot. It is a large framed picture, a panoramic cockpit view of open sky and desert. A small F‑15 Eagle is visible in the distance, but larger and more immediate, filling the center of the shot, staring right at the viewer, is an incoming missile.

It is a startling picture, memorializing a moment of air-to-air combat from January 19, 1991, over Iraq. Air-to-air combat has become exceedingly rare. Even when it happens, modern fighter pilots are rarely close enough to actually see the person they are shooting at. This image recalls a kill registered by Rodriguez, who goes by Rico, and his wingman, Craig Underhill, known as Mole, during the Gulf War.

A special-operations team combed the Iraqi MiG’s crash site, and this was one of the items salvaged, the last millisecond of incoming data from the doomed Iraqi pilot’s HUD, or head-up display. It was the final splash of light on his retinas, probably arriving too late for his brain to process before being vaporized with the rest of his corporeal frame. Pilots like Rodriguez don’t romanticize such exploits. These are strictly matter-of-fact men from a world where war is work, and life and death hang on a rapidly and precisely calibrated reality, an attitude captured by the flat caption mounted on the frame: THIS IS AN AIM-7 AIR-TO-AIR MISSILE SHOT FROM AN F‑15 EAGLE DETONATING ON AN IRAQI MIG‑29 FULCRUM DURING OPERATION DESERT STORM.

The AIM-7 is radar guided, meaning the F-15's transmissions were providing target information to the missile. The missile's approach was so fast head on that the Iraqi pilot and his aircraft never had the time to formulate any response.

The F-22 can do all of this relying on an adversary's transmissions:

- Determine the adversary's position with respect to itself.

- Analyze the adversary's radar transmissions as to threat signal sophistication.

- Give the pilot probabilistic detection range when he will be detected by the adversary.

The F-22 pilot will then decide on how to approach his adversary.

 

[Obambam]

Very good point, never thought of that. If it wasn't great....why spend the blood sweat and tears to copy it.

Another reason being the money that can be made by selling stealth technology. America is already ahead in that department (selling to allied nations). China and Russia will be competing in the same market at a later date. Notice how China have made its Project 301 available to the international community by displaying a mock up of it in the Zhuhai 2012 airshow?

 

[SpArK]

An F-22 Raptor U.S. lands under the gaze of a British Tornado.Red Flag on Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada.

 

[Superboy]

F-22 has much reduced RCS, but its claimed RCS is vastly exaggerated by LM. If F-22 is so good, DoD wouldn't have killed it after only 187 planes manufactured.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

F-22 has much reduced RCS, but its claimed RCS is vastly exaggerated by LM. If F-22 is so good, DoD wouldn't have killed it after only 187 planes manufactured.

The DoD didn't kill it. Politicians voted 58-40 to stop funding it.

 

[VCheng]

The DoD didn't kill it. Politicians voted 58-40 to stop funding it.

The funding was stopped because even the existing fleet gives USAF such a huge advantage already. This is the same situation that led to the evolution of the B-1 into a cheaper and downgraded B-1B and cancellation of the B-70 Valkyrie.

 

[Esc8781]

The DoD didn't kill it. Politicians voted 58-40 to stop funding it.

Also thanks to Robert Gates' ignorance.