Listened to podcast on this issue.
I don't find him anywhere near as informative on military stuff as Shilao, but his podcast made some useful point too. He mentioned that he has a contact flying either F-22/35, who he contacted to ask about this encounter. Basically, his contact said that they are typically very careful when encountering another aircraft of same generation, because they don't want to give away secrets about how they operate it and the capabilities of their aircraft. And they see the same thing from PLA side of things. He also said that other pilots have experience scenario where PLAAF aircraft spotted them first and they couldn't spot PLAAF aircraft for a period of time. It seemed like in both cases, both PLAAF and USAF aircraft would be given some advanced early warning that they were approaching another stealth aircraft.
Now, I don't know exactly how much Luneberg lens amplifies RCS of a stealth aircraft, but I get the impression that it doesn't amplify return to the level of a 4th generation aircraft. Please correct me if I'm wrong here.
Also, they talked about the comment over KJ-500 providing targeting data and guiding long range missiles. They mentioned that the target aircraft probably got beamed on by KJ-500 for a long period of time. I obviously don't know which aircraft is getting locked on by KJ-500 at long range, but presumably beaming at a tight window gives longer range and accuracy than doing full scan. And the advantage of having multiple KJ-500 in the air is that the target aircraft cannot simply turn itself so that the direction with the lowest RCS (let's say frontal) faces that KJ-500. In that case, the side profile would be more trackable from longer range. Especially with L-band radar that I think KJ-500 is carrying.
If we consider that Gen Wilsbach's comment that E-7 can help shooters in detecting J-20 (+ the out of no where praise of KJ-500 in kill chain), it probably means that KJ-500 is legitimately helping PLAAF shooters to find/track F-35 at longer range.
Other have speculated that Wilsbach comment about PLAAF command and control indicates that USAF is impressed at how quickly PLAAF was able to scramble J-20 over to meet F-35. In reality, I think they are more likely just sending over whichever aircraft happens to be closest to F-35.
I don't find him anywhere near as informative on military stuff as Shilao, but his podcast made some useful point too. He mentioned that he has a contact flying either F-22/35, who he contacted to ask about this encounter. Basically, his contact said that they are typically very careful when encountering another aircraft of same generation, because they don't want to give away secrets about how they operate it and the capabilities of their aircraft. And they see the same thing from PLA side of things. He also said that other pilots have experience scenario where PLAAF aircraft spotted them first and they couldn't spot PLAAF aircraft for a period of time. It seemed like in both cases, both PLAAF and USAF aircraft would be given some advanced early warning that they were approaching another stealth aircraft.
Now, I don't know exactly how much Luneberg lens amplifies RCS of a stealth aircraft, but I get the impression that it doesn't amplify return to the level of a 4th generation aircraft. Please correct me if I'm wrong here.
Also, they talked about the comment over KJ-500 providing targeting data and guiding long range missiles. They mentioned that the target aircraft probably got beamed on by KJ-500 for a long period of time. I obviously don't know which aircraft is getting locked on by KJ-500 at long range, but presumably beaming at a tight window gives longer range and accuracy than doing full scan. And the advantage of having multiple KJ-500 in the air is that the target aircraft cannot simply turn itself so that the direction with the lowest RCS (let's say frontal) faces that KJ-500. In that case, the side profile would be more trackable from longer range. Especially with L-band radar that I think KJ-500 is carrying.
If we consider that Gen Wilsbach's comment that E-7 can help shooters in detecting J-20 (+ the out of no where praise of KJ-500 in kill chain), it probably means that KJ-500 is legitimately helping PLAAF shooters to find/track F-35 at longer range.
Other have speculated that Wilsbach comment about PLAAF command and control indicates that USAF is impressed at how quickly PLAAF was able to scramble J-20 over to meet F-35. In reality, I think they are more likely just sending over whichever aircraft happens to be closest to F-35.
