D-Scythe

Not big enough to do a sim that satisfies everybody.

Great, so you're basing your entire perspective on a Discovery channel program where F/A-18 pilots gave their German counterparts "props" for a good training session. Now there's a solid factual base for an opinion if I ever saw one. Yet another victim of the Cobra. The more I think about it, the more I believe that such airshow maneuvers are a weapon for use against the public, rather than having any military significance. Of course, the F-22 was designed with the very powerful, passive ALR-94 sensor suite of its own, plus its easier for an AESA radar to fool any RWR/ESM receivers than a normal mechanically scanned one. Oh wait, the F-22 has a datalink of its own, so that each fighter can share information with minimal use of radar or any other active sensor. Plus when it is turned on, its AESA sends out pencil beams to track targets, rather than flood entire cubic kilometers of airspace with RF energy like normal radars, so that might also be a teensy weensy problem for passive ESM sensors that are not being tracked by radar. Oh, I can't believe I forgot....did I mention that an F-22 doesn't actually need to turn on the APG-77 to kill things with AMRAAM/SDB? (surprise surprise, Lockheed and the USAF designed the F-22 with emission control in mind) Great, now I'm starting to sound like an advertisement for Lockheed Martin, a boring drone that just repeatedly sprouts out how great the omnipotent Raptor is. And it blows. Can we just cut to the part where the F-22 crowd gets tired of explaining things and the anti-F-22 crowd repeats "every weapon has a weakness" and get on with our lives?

No, I know. I was just responding to his statement that stealth was "hacked." Everyone has a right to an opinion, not to pass of their own opinion as fact.

That's funny, considering the F-22 has better instantaneous and sustained turn-rates than ANYTHING out there, especially in the SUPERSONIC and TRANSONIC flight regime where agility actually counts for something. But I guess your PhD in aeronautical engineering makes you some kind of expert able to make "credible" statements like what you said above. And...oh wait, we're comparing the in-service F-22 to not-in-service Russian fighters again aren't we? Outside of attempting to make a self-fulfilling prophecy out of white-paper nonsense, how much do you really know about the F-22 and/or Russian aircraft? What operational Russian fighter would even come close to the transonic/supersonic performance of the F-22? Oh yeah, and *you* would, because you have access to such classified information unlike the rest of us. HAHAHA! :megalol: Hmm, stealth can't be "hacked" because it's a physical phenomenon (like electricity, or buoyancy), NOT a computer one. But maybe that's why you keep undermining stealth - because you keep thinking it's some kind of computer program that can be hacked by a 14 year old kid from his basement.

Fine then, what's the weakness of the systems we're discussing? If you still deny the effectiveness of IR stealth, then you must know something the rest of us don't. And I'm pretty sure there's no tin foil on the camouflage/stealth suite of the M1A2 or the F-22.

Update.

Yeah, I don't see anything out of the ordinary. MiG-21s, I think, cause if the blue is supposed to be sky, than those are delta-shaped wings.

Yeah right. Unless the missiles are approaching directly from 6 o'clock, or the MiG is severely penalized by the gun being mounted on a pivoting turret, the idea of a rearward-firing CIWS on a jet fighter is laughable.

As IRST/EO's biggest fan, I realize it's your job to sell these things, but ever hear of something called false advertising? Or embellishing?

Too bad the F-15s were simulating Pakistani F-16As and F-7s. Since when did the F-22 need the AIM-120D to be operational? That's like saying the Eurofighter isn't operational until the Meteor comes into service. Come on Tuckson. Bring your A-game.

Pretty sure the Soviets didn't fight against the Americans in Vietnam.

Jessica Biel frowns upon you.

Don't tell me SK's thread got deleted too...

Yeah, u should be able to find it at lockonfiles.

Care to elaborate? Sounds interesting.

Um, real life pilots agree with us. There is no "on the other hand." Anything over 20 000ft (6300m) would give range approaching what is advertised. The most important consideration is the target's altitude - it affects your missile range more than anything else.

I think the proposed HMS systems in the West at the time had no seeker indicator - the pilot basically looks at the target and from the missile "growl" (which indicates a target has been locked, not which target) fires the missile. Thus in a furball, the only thing the pilot can be sure of was that a missile has locked a target in the pilot's FOV, which could be a friendly or enemy. That was my understanding anyway. Another explanation could be that the AIM-92 missile itself would tend to just go mad-dog off the rail even if there was some sort of seeker indicator on the HMS. In any case, uncaging the seeker in the HUD should be no more prone to fractricide attacks than using an HMS. When you uncage the seeker in the HUD, you see exactly where the seeker is pointing - it's not a big problem of visually picking out which target you wanna attack.

The AIM-92 being developed for the FX program (i.e. F-15) was supposed to be integrated with HMS as well. However, IIRC, when the system was tested on F-4s, they found the risk of fractricide to be way too high, so the program was scrapped.

I thought only the Russians used helmet mounted sights? The Israelis and other western militaries have always used HMDs....

The F-15 and F/A-18 are the lead fighters for the JHMCS program, even before the F-22. The F-35 are supposed to enter service with it. Rationale is that non-Raptor pilots are more likely to find themselves in a dogfight, so they (non-Raptors) get their HMDs first. JHMCS have been reaching F-15 units a long time ago. For example, the F-15C in the following image is from the 390th FS and his pilot clearly has JHMCS (http://www.af.mil/shared/media/photodb/photos/061019-F-6911G-870.jpg). In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if ANG F-15 units are getting their HMDs by now.

Sorry, but unless the Flanker can slow from Mach 1 to 0 airspeed like chaff particles can, this is impossible. There's no way for any aircraft, save some alien spaceship, to physically "fake" being a chaff cloud. Even the fact that missiles can reject chaff clouds based on its deceleration comes with several limitations. The range has to be pretty small (like 1 to 2 miles) in order for even a chaff cloud (that can decelerate to 0 instantaneously) to generate a LOS change great enough to be rejected.

Wow, how could I miss that? Sorry bout that. No - it seems to be a straight up, simple example that deals with the raw power aspect of burn through. But then again, ECCM isn't exactly burn-through. Again, from what I can see, it was a simple example scenario to show how negligible burn-through actually is. Not exactly. In terms of just raw power (no ECCM or anything), the jammer beats the radar hands down. The case I illustrated before was an ideal, best case scenario for the radar (1/R^2 vs. 1/R^4). In reality, the target isn't going to exhibit perfect reflectivity - i.e. redirecting 100% of the radar waves back to the receiver - not even close. Even if the radar focuses all its energy on target, it's only going to get a really tiny fraction of it back. On the other hand, working with RWR, the jammer can pretty much direct everything it's got in the direction of enemy radar. Thus, to me (and I've absolutely no credibility in this area), no matter which way you slice it burn-through is negligible. The radar has to rely on ECCM.

Actually, it isn't so black-and-white. Obviously, technology-wise, the R-77 is a newer and better weapon, but its kinematics aren't great for a BVR weapon. Apparently, the Russians weren't keen on the quick replacement of R-27s because it arrives with/retains vastly more energy than the R-77 in the end-game during a BVR engagement. For those interested, it's generally accepted by "experts" that grid fins don't really perform well at the lower speeds (transonic, low supersonic) typical of a terminal BVR intercept. Missile Grid Fins: http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/weapons/q0261.shtml In that respect, the R-27ER is a more useful weapon.

Really? So you can implement new animations into a 3rd party model? That's news to me - thanks for the correction. I see.

You mean make the animations show up in LOMAC? You can't. LOMAC has to "call" the animation, and since it will never call a new animation, this really can't be done at the moment.