Pilots say new U.S. stealth fighter has no equal

Yes, and the shoot-down of that F-117 was as close to lucky as a person shooting a mouse with a pistol at 100 yards away. That is what I am saying. They pretty much blind-shot it, which shouldn't be enough to hamper stealth aircraft's reputation.

More visible to thermal detectors? The question is, how much more visible? Stealth is to decrease the chances of being detected dramatically, not make them impossible to be spotted. There will always be chances of being spotted.


As far as we know, no heavily stealth aircraft have been shot down except that one F-117. The F-22 and F-35 have electronic warfare capabilities, I am sure they have some counter to the major threats that SAMs pose.


It all depends on how it will be used; smartly or stupidly. Any active SAM have the chances of being detected and destroyed by anti-SAM equipment (like Desert Storm 2) the mobility only make it hard to find.
The F-35 is almost certainly a lot more visible, giving how exposed it's singular, very large engine is. I'm not so sure about the F-22, but I'd say an infrared missile could catch it if you shoot at it while it's back is turned.

However, I believe the future of stealth will lie in Metamaterials, why be merely hard to detect with Radio waves, Microwaves, and Infrared when you can be more or less invisible to the entire electromagnetic spectrum?
 
but you have to also say this, a plane could be so expanive their they cant afford to lose it, which also means they cant afford to use it, this is with the b2, the F-22 at well over 200 million dollars a pop, an enemy can afford to lose 5 F-15's to 1 F-22, in a large scale war its numbers that win

How much does it cost to train a fighter pilot? losing 5 pilots might be worse than losing 5 F-15s.
 
I think it costs about a million or more dollars, plus whatever salary he had earned up to that point. Less expensive monentarily speaking than the fighter and it's equipment, but more time consuming to replace.
 
The F-35 is almost certainly a lot more visible, giving how exposed it's singular, very large engine is. I'm not so sure about the F-22, but I'd say an infrared missile could catch it if you shoot at it while it's back is turned.
I can't speak much about the F-35, I do know it will spend much of its life at subsonic speeds but, I know with the F-22 (and probably the T-50) when traveling above Mach 1.5 and at altitudes above 60,000-ft (18,500-m)... well above the altitudes other aircraft routinely operate at, any aircraft seeking to attack these two fighters will have to get real close before launching a missile. If the attack fighter is at 45,000-ft. (13,700-m) while the F-22/T-50 is above 60,000-ft. the attacking fighter would have to get within two miles (3-km) horizontally, to give any IR missile a chance to intercept these two "high flyers." Seeing a high flyer and getting it in a weapons engagement zone are two separate and difficult problems.

I believe the future of stealth will lie in Metamaterials, why be merely hard to detect with Radio waves, Microwaves, and Infrared when you can be more or less invisible to the entire electromagnetic spectrum?
Where as the electronic eye sees differently than the human eye, work to make the stealthy aircraft less visible to the artificial optical sensor continues!

How much does it cost to train a fighter pilot? losing 5 pilots might be worse than losing 5 F-15s.
The F-22 or T-50 can do things no other fighter can do while the loss of five F-15 can be replaced with five F-15s, F-16s or, F/A-18s. The loss of one F-22 or T-50 is a greater loss. Five F-15s, etc. would have less chance of surviving being near an S-300 or S-400 SAM system than one F-22 or T-50 that could drop a JDAM on the SAM site.

I think it costs about a million or more dollars, plus whatever salary he had earned up to that point. Less expensive monentarily speaking than the fighter and it's equipment, but more time consuming to replace.
It is over a million and a half now. It is not only the cost to train him, the loss of a pilot means, the state will have to train a new pilot, replace the aircraft, wind up in some fashion supporting his young family, the loss of tax money to the government from the wages the pilot would have earned for his forty or so years of employment, etc. If it is a plane that has a crew of two or more, the expense is even greater.
It is expensive, the Israeli Army did an extensive analysis on the expense in losing a tank in combat and found the loss of the tank (and replacing it) as being one of the smaller expenses! Helping the injured -rehabilitation, the young families and, the loss of tax income for the government for forty plus years, adjust for inflation... all adds to an expense far greater than the expense of the tank.

I have a question, with the appearance of the T-50, where does it rank against the Euro-canards??
 
I can't speak much about the F-35, I do know it will spend much of its life at subsonic speeds but, I know with the F-22 (and probably the T-50) when traveling above Mach 1.5 and at altitudes above 60,000-ft (18,500-m)... well above the altitudes other aircraft routinely operate at, any aircraft seeking to attack these two fighters will have to get real close before launching a missile. If the attack fighter is at 45,000-ft. (13,700-m) while the F-22/T-50 is above 60,000-ft. the attacking fighter would have to get within two miles (3-km) horizontally, to give any IR missile a chance to intercept these two "high flyers." Seeing a high flyer and getting it in a weapons engagement zone are two separate and difficult problems.


Where as the electronic eye sees differently than the human eye, work to make the stealthy aircraft less visible to the artificial optical sensor continues!


The F-22 or T-50 can do things no other fighter can do while the loss of five F-15 can be replaced with five F-15s, F-16s or, F/A-18s. The loss of one F-22 or T-50 is a greater loss. Five F-15s, etc. would have less chance of surviving being near an S-300 or S-400 SAM system than one F-22 or T-50 that could drop a JDAM on the SAM site.


It is over a million and a half now. It is not only the cost to train him, the loss of a pilot means, the state will have to train a new pilot, replace the aircraft, wind up in some fashion supporting his young family, the loss of tax money to the government from the wages the pilot would have earned for his forty or so years of employment, etc. If it is a plane that has a crew of two or more, the expense is even greater.
It is expensive, the Israeli Army did an extensive analysis on the expense in losing a tank in combat and found the loss of the tank (and replacing it) as being one of the smaller expenses! Helping the injured -rehabilitation, the young families and, the loss of tax income for the government for forty plus years, adjust for inflation... all adds to an expense far greater than the expense of the tank.

I have a question, with the appearance of the T-50, where does it rank against the Euro-canards??
Even the electronic eye is impotent against a metamaterial. Even an Camera would still see nothing, save for perhaps a very faint outline of the pilot's eyes (which are the only parts that are visible, and professer Michio Kaku found a way to hide those too, by using light redirectors, allowing only %4 of the ambient light to reach the eyes, making for an more or less invisible jet) which would be too far away to detect even if they were fully visible and are too faint to notice even if you were standing two feet away. With one layer for every color of the visible light, infrared, microwave, and radio spectrum, with the radio and radar protected in a similar manner as the pilot's eyes, Viola, your craft is essentially fool-proof because Ultraviolet, X-rays, and Gamma ray detectors get absorbed by the atmosphere before they ever reach it.

Heck you can do this with ground units and one-up the stealthiness of the ninja of fiction. A sniper you can't see is terrifying, an entire brigade of invisible tanks is high octane nightmare fuel.
 
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Czin, thank you for the information on the metamaterials. I knew LM had done some things to reduce it the IR as well as the optical detection, but knew little beyond that. I did know the detection reduction equipment or features work well enough to to bring any opponent well within AMRAAM range.
 
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