Thanks for reply . I understood it . Apart from your use of " mofrei "
Morfei is a new short range IIR guided missile to be used by all branches of the Russian armed forces.
For the Air Force it will be a small short range self defence missile used by fighters and bombers as a short range defence weapon that can be fired from an internal weapon bay without a lock on. After launch either from a weapon bay of a fighter or bomber, or off the launch rail of a conventional aircraft/unmanned aircraft the missile will have a two way datalink so it can pass its view back to the launch platform which can select a target or it can select a target itself.
It will have an onboard database of 3D IR images so it can identify targets and select the most dangerous itself.
For a very low flying aircraft that means you can fire it backwards at pretty much any target from enemy aircraft to enemy missiles (AAM and SAM).
I agree that flying low has advantages / disadvantages , in terms of speed etc . But my main concern is about hiding the plane from radars . So hiding the plane , below horizon has obvious advantages . And other radars such as over the horizon radar , may not be as efficient . But for airborne radar , I guess the altitude of plane makes no difference . Only it's radar cross section .
Unless it is super stealthy then it will be detected at reasonable ranges by airborne radar... the Soviet/Russian solution is speed and numbers.
Compared with the western solution of numbers.
Now about IR signature of engine and plume . The observability depends on :
( 1 ) Altitude of plane . The closer to thin atmosphere . Or high altitude . The more signal pass through to space .
( 2 ) The angle of satellite or spy plane to fighter .
( 3 ) The humidity or cloud cover .
( 4 ) The time of day . Amount of reflected light from the sea .
( 5 ) The size of engine . And if after burner is used .
( 6 ) The temperature of engine . The type of fuel . Wavelength of exhaust gases .
It may be possible by using different fuel type . Engine type . Time of flight . To find a window . Where engine and plume are disguised against background radiation and not enough gets out to high altitude or space .
NAVAL AEW does not really use IR so time of day, humidity, engine temperature are all irrelevant... the radar will detect the incoming targets and that information will be passed to the carrier to launch aircraft and vector aircraft already in the air to your position and to power up the SAM systems on all the ships of the carrier group.
The point is that at sea level the fastest you will travel is mach 0.9 with a payload of weapons.
If you replace that manned fighter/bomber with a missile like Yakhont you get a faster speed at sea level... something like mach 1.6-1.8, or at medium to high altitude almost twice that.
In 10 years time with Zircon you get to double that again at high altitude.
In the persian gulf for Iran you are better going for quiet running torpedoes and mines.