F-22 Raptor Thread
- Thread starter Jeff Head
- Start date
Ultra
Junior Member
The pilot's will released them once they are in range of enemy radars to get back on their stealth mode. When your radars are better than the other guy, one can afford to have the extra drop tanks for further traveling therefore saving the internal fuel for the dog fights and bombing mission.
Yeh but what happened when AWACS detects you before you can even drop your drop-tanks?
Not really, they give the F-22 long legs to get to the combat operations area without burning internal fuel, and they are dropped long before the F-22 penetrates hostile airspace. Once on station the F-22 blows those tanks, goes full "ninja", does the job, and exits quickly and quietly, and flies direct to the tankers, who are standing by to "top her off". No sweat.
Beautiful picture of a beautiful aircraft, note the very large wing area, and that the horizontal stabs are almost half the span of the main wing. The large main wing locates the center of lift on or very near the center of gravity, those large stabs make vicious pitch transitions effortlessly, even without OVT. In fact that works so well, OVT was omitted from the F-35 as unnecessary.
Honda Motors called such an arrangement "mass centralization" on their big racing motorcycles, those same principles of physics apply to the F-22, lending to its relaxed stability. The aft mounted delta, attempts to compensate for the aft "center of lift", by moving the forward mounted canard, out in front of the center of gravity in order to "drive" very rapid pitch transitions with the large, "long throw canards". While that is effective, it is not as simple or effective as the conventional lay-out of the F-22??
TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
in combat ops, Raptors will fly clean. the tanks are just for Ferry range.
Nice try...but, err, no.
Those big drop tanks are named "drop" tanks for a reason. They will be "dropped" long before they come into what they consider any opposition radar coverage.
Like so:
Ultra
Junior Member
Nice try...but, err, no.
Those big drop tanks are named "drop" tanks for a reason. They will be "dropped" long before they come into what they consider any opposition radar coverage.
Like so:
AWACS?
Equation
Lieutenant General
The other guys radar still has to be within range to guide his missiles effectively even with AWACS warning and possible location (due to stealth). Once the DT are released the F-22 could easily maneuver to a different position that even AWACS couldn't keep up effectively enough to say other than "good luck guys" to their fighters.
Ultra
Junior Member
Stealth is not invisible.
Chinese and Russian Radars On Track To See Through U.S. Stealth
By:
July 29, 2014 11:01 AM • Updated: July 30, 2014 1:05 PM
"A growing trend in Russian and Chinese radar could make U.S. stealth fighters easier to see and — more importantly — easier to target for potential adversaries, a former senior U.S. Navy official told USNI News.
U.S. fighters — like the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lighting II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) — are protected by stealth technology optimized for higher frequency targeting radars but not for lower frequency radars.
Until now a focus on higher frequencies have not been a problem because low frequency radars have traditionally been unable to generate “weapons quality tracks.”
JSF and the F-22 are protected from higher frequencies in the Ku, X, C and parts of the S bands. But both jets can be seen on enemy radars operating in the longer wavelengths like L, UHF and VHF.
In other words, Russian and Chinese radars can generally detect a stealth aircraft but not clearly enough to give an accurate location to a missile
But that is starting to change.
“Acquisition and fire control radars are starting to creep down the frequency spectrum,” a former senior U.S. Navy official told USNI News on Monday.
With improved computing power, low frequency radars are getting better and better at discerning targets more precisely.
“I don’t see how you long survive in the world of 2020 or 2030 when dealing with these systems if you don’t have the lower frequency coverage,” the former official said.
Further, new foreign rival warships are increasingly being built with both high and low frequency radars."......
MORE:
Brumby
Major
Radar science is actually quite well understood and the relationships are defined by the radar equation. If you have a fair idea of the RCS profile, detection ranges can be easily approximated.
A simple equation for detection range is derived by :
Source : Introduction to airborne radar by George Stimson
Having outlined the above let's deal with some specifics :
Firstly, the question of AWACS. There is a detection limit imposed by the earth curvature even if the radar detection range can reach out further.
In the case of VLO platforms like the F-35 and F-22, the detection ranges are much reduced
Even if the F-22's were to carry external fuel tanks and the RCS profile raised, the F-22's will likely be supported by Growlers providing stand-off noise jamming to degrade any signal to noise ratio. You have an advantage when operating with a LO profile because of the relationship between RCS, jamming power and detection ranges.
Finally the primary nature of stealth is to enable the 5th gen assets to operate in a non permissive environment and is not about non detection. The goal of your adversary is to be able to track and then target and not just detection. Getting from detection to targeting is a highly complex discussion.
A simple equation for detection range is derived by :
Source : Introduction to airborne radar by George Stimson
Having outlined the above let's deal with some specifics :
Firstly, the question of AWACS. There is a detection limit imposed by the earth curvature even if the radar detection range can reach out further.
In the case of VLO platforms like the F-35 and F-22, the detection ranges are much reduced
Even if the F-22's were to carry external fuel tanks and the RCS profile raised, the F-22's will likely be supported by Growlers providing stand-off noise jamming to degrade any signal to noise ratio. You have an advantage when operating with a LO profile because of the relationship between RCS, jamming power and detection ranges.
Finally the primary nature of stealth is to enable the 5th gen assets to operate in a non permissive environment and is not about non detection. The goal of your adversary is to be able to track and then target and not just detection. Getting from detection to targeting is a highly complex discussion.