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I highly doubt that some seam work, speed tape and ram is for that much reduction in RCS. That's a 75% reduction. (I think)
Do you have any numbers on that ? I think the aforementioned treatment would be good for a 10-15% reduction max. If you could bring down the RCS by 75%, with just that, it probably wouldn't be worth building stealth aircraft.
I am talking about going from the original MiG-29 and Su-27s where no consideration for stealth was made at all... close up shots of the early MiG-29s showed gaps between the surface plates you could fit your finger in. They didn't matter for aerodynamics of course... which is all they cared about.
There was no angle alignment and smooth rounded LERX edges and no RAM at all.
That first 65% of reduction is easy... and relatively simple and straight forward... the next 10 percent is much harder and requires precision production and parts and joins that fit perfectly. To get another 5% improvement beyond that is too expensive to contemplate... it starts becoming cheaper to start with a shape that was designed to be stealthy to begin with.
The current MiG-35 has radar blockers and RAM on its engine blades and RAM and 25% composite materials instead of the original 1%.
The MiG-35 is not a stealth fighter, so clean it probably has a RCS of maybe 2-3 m^2. The Su-35 is a bigger aircraft but RCS is a funny thing...
No, you get lift from every airfoil depending on the AoA of the missile
So ASRAAM doesn't fly, because it has minimal external surfaces because it has TVC for manouvering and has only tiny stabilisers...
What sort of lift do the dorsal and ventral airfoils generate?
We don't need to discuss the physics of why the example does not apply do we?
It is about density and mass... there is a reason bullets are generally lead cored because dense means mass and also lower drag because of compact size.
Balloons can't be thrown easily when filled with air because their lack of mass and enormous drag work against them pushing air aside to move.
A water filled balloon corrects this problem, though its fragile nature does limit how far it can be thrown.
> Radar equation determines that the detection range changes with the fourth root of the RCS. That means that the reduction in detection range with the reduced radar return of a plane is highly non linear (10 times less RCS is just 0,56 times the detection range).
And wearing a ghillie suit does not help if you stand up and run around an open field in it...
As a HATO force commander once said... it is easy to defeat our army... just shoot all the bushes... after an exercise on open flat grassy plains.
> The values given in the West for their "VLO" planes are certified BS.
They want to sell product and make their system look the best they can so they tend to use peak values... and if you have ever seen a RCS image of any aircraft... the 2 D one looking down vertically showing radar returns from horizontal angles the result is a hedge hog... very very spiky.
You can give the smallest figure or the average or the biggest... no one gives the biggest.
> The frontal RCS of a 4.5G plane depends on some factors but may be way smaller than those 10 dBsm you mention
Of course... 1.5 trillion spent on the F-35 was wasted... they could have just upgraded existing types to get stealthy aircraft.... NOT.
It really only matters when you start getting very very stealthy and with an existing type that is simply not possible.
> Frequency dependency of the RCS means those VLO planes are perfectly visible in VHF and longer wavelengths
Indeed... to return to our camouflage analogy, colours and patterns to break up shape does not help in thermal imagers where you glow against the dark cold background.
Of course there is camouflage for IR frequencies too, but there are a range of IR frequencies too... one Russian optics company was working on a processor that could process the light from objects that could determine if the colour was natural, or if it was artificially created with paint or dye like in fabric. With that software your Image Intensifier would make a human in a camo uniform glow not because they are warm, but because of the artificial colours used in their uniform...
> ECM reduces the detection range of a radar even more effectively than lowering RCS
But for the super stealthy aircraft it reveals there is enemy forces there and of course can be specifically targeted too.
What people call LO or VLO is not even clear or makes too much sense IMHO, because those categories are influenced by the above mentioned BS values spread by Western MIC and associated media.
LO was invented for planes like the Rafale that were designed and made when stealth was an issue, but they really didn't pay that much attention to making the aircraft stealthy. They wanted to reduce the distance you could detect it but probably couldn't actually make a stealthy design work.
VLO is to compete against F-35s which can probably also be considered VLO in their export versions that wont be as stealthy as domestic models.
Do you have any numbers on that ? I think the aforementioned treatment would be good for a 10-15% reduction max. If you could bring down the RCS by 75%, with just that, it probably wouldn't be worth building stealth aircraft.
Stealth design is ruled by the law of diminished returns... so take a non stealthy aircraft and apply obvious and easy fixes and changes to make it more stealthy... essentially point a radar at the front and look for the biggest spikes and change angles and profiles and shapes and corners that create those huge spikes... it is relatively easy for a company already making stealthy aircraft, and relatively cheap too.
Even just angling the face of the radar to prevent the radar antenna returning radar waves back to sources will dramatically reduce RCS.
That might only cost a few million dollars per plane and is well worth it.
Further upgrades become much harder and also much more expensive... so new RAM coatings on hot spots, and changing materials and even introducing radar blockers and RAM covered front engine blades. All sensors and blisters and external equipment becomes flush dieelectric panels that reduces RCS and drag.
The surface joins and fastners are replaced and made more precise and much better fitting... the first change might reduce RCS by 60% or more and be a few million dollars, but the second upgrade wont make anywhere near that much of a difference and might only improve things 10% and cost 20 million or more per aircraft.
The next step would be further shape and material changes and it starts getting so expensive nobody bothers unless you are in the process of totally changing how the aircraft is manufactured... you know... like MiG did with their new MiG-29M/KR/35 family with rather more composites and new shaping and materials.
Just the sharp edge of the LERX probably reduced it by quite a bit on its own.
The MiG-25 like intakes fitted to the Tu-22M3... (as opposed to the older intakes of the Tu-22M2 that looked like the intakes on a MiG-23) actually increased the RCS of the aircraft from the front by 25%. It improved engine performance so much they didn't change it back.
I am not saying that satellite guided air to air missiles exist. I am saying it's worth the effort to design such a missile.
GLONASS or GPS can be modified to provide the necessary input to such a missile.
Do you mean satellite guided as in using satellite fixes like your car does for navigation... or do you mean actually communicating with satellites to receive target locations... because that is not what those satellites do. GLONASS and GPS satellites just have eye wateringly accurate clocks and they transmit the time.
Receivers on the ground or in the air receive these signals and when you get signals from 3 or more satellites telling you very precisely what the time is from their position the receiver can work out your position based on when it receives those signals and the time they report.
They are not scanning the earth surface or airspace above it for targets and they are not following everyone with a receiver to track them and follow them so when someone turns on their nav device it does not contact the satellites and ask where it is.
Why not? A constellation of satellites in low orbit will be able to detect individual targets on a battlefield.
Cloud and smoke obscure their view and on most battlefields there is the problem of identification... is it a friendly, an enemy, or a non combatant... and more importantly on most battlefields there will be millions of targets... it is not really practical even assuming the enemy does nothing to defeat your satellites... note MiG-41 and S-500 and Nudol are looking like new systems that can defeat enemy satellite systems and don't forget that laser system prevet or something...
