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F-22 and Russian Propaganda

The Chief of the Indian Air Force claims the PAK-FA T-50 is a huge piece of junk and they are threatening to kill their involvement in the project. The General cited major issues with structural fabrication and the fact that the T-50 lacks the needed coatings which are vital for stealth(this is something that Russia and China badly trail us on). But the General noted that even if those issues are caught up over the next decade, he has serious concerns over the reliability of the vital aircraft systems, engines, and especially the radar & electronic warfare capability. The US has over 30 years over operational stealth experience and most engineers and maintainers will quickly admit, not only is stealth an ultra expensive thing to get into and maintain, but to truly possess the capability, not a single corner can be cut. India has expressed interest in the F-35 but they will never be granted access to that program for a number of legit reasons.

So, the bigger question is, is stealth obsolete with the new advances in Russian and other countries new radars? NO. The studies about lower frequency VHF waves being able to detect stealth aircraft is nothing new, it was known at the inception of stealth and such methods have been used to attempt to track them with little to no net effect thus far. VHF and Passive signal scanners can be effectively neutralized by different electronic warfare methods both active/passive jamming and with Cyber-Microwave Interdiction(Key-Holing) which can seize control of enemy radar nets(which Israel has used to great effect against S-300 and SA-17 batteries). So, in the end, yes, there will be propaganda but when the rubber meets the road, then you'll see who's propaganda holds actual water. This game of stealth and counter-measures isn't cheap and will only get more expensive over time.
 
well my dad had a friend named George Grant who went to washington DC and lobbied for this aircraft,almost everything that woman claimed in this video was proven false by George( im not going to claim to know about the money) but i do know that things like no communication with other aircraft types was BS,as was the fit of parts claims.unfortunately George recently passed away,but he was a propulsion specialist,designed the B2 system as well as the F22 ,he worked on the SR71,and many other planes.

he was also the headman at AeroJet in rancho cordova for many years.

i could go on but i wont...
 
Daveroo said:
well my dad had a friend named George Grant who went to washington DC and lobbied for this aircraft,almost everything that woman claimed in this video was proven false by George( im not going to claim to know about the money) but i do know that things like no communication with other aircraft types was BS,as was the fit of parts claims.unfortunately George recently passed away,but he was a propulsion specialist,designed the B2 system as well as the F22 ,he worked on the SR71,and many other planes.

he was also the headman at AeroJet in rancho cordova for many years.

i could go on but i wont...
Click to expand...

I agree Dave, there's a lot of over the top non-sense uttered by "Maddog" Maddow in that video. Of Course stealth aircraft might suffer increased RCS if their skin coating gets wet when flying through heavy rain but then again, there are ways to actively exploit the "filtering" capability of both ground based and airborne radar sets which might be scanning sectors of sky with heavy weather. As soon as the jet clears the weather, it will almost dry instantly. F-117's didn't have to big an issue with this. The bigger concern of flying a stealth aircraft in or near a major weather area would be suffering hail stone impacts which could ding or even delaminate RAM material/coatings and compromise the RCS in a big way. There are many limitations on stealth technology and areas of risk which have to be avoided but with the capability of some SAM systems nowadays, if you're not in the stealth game, you're not in the game at all. Same say the likes of the B-2, F-22, & F-35 are too expensive but I'd argue that you might get 150 or more F/A-18E/F's or Typhoons for the cost of just 30 to 75 F-35's but what good are the former (previous gen combat aircraft) if most of them are unable to penetrate and/or hold airspace protected by gen 4.5/5 jet fighters and the latest SAM's? To keep an edge, the boundaries have to be relentlessly pushed which has never been and ever will be cheap and to expect complex technology to be bug free is laughable by any standard. BTW, the Russians and Chinese are going to find out in a very painful and costly way what they are getting into with these aircraft. I strongly suspect we'll see their production numbers end up being drastically lower that what they are projecting. A couple of decades from now, I'm sure they'll be long past those growing pains by then, we'll have been in the stealth game for 50 years.
 
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