Goodness JSFfan - If you can't base an RCS calculation from "Internet photos" (which are of lower quality than regular photos, exactly how?) how come, back in the day, you'd find yourself assuming the position at the wrong end of an M-16 if you tried to get within telephoto range of TTR?
Believe me, sonny, back in those days the GRU would have killed for images like we have on the web today. Literally.
In our modern day, photos beget a wireframe and the wireframe begets a pretty good physical-optics estimate, and while there are other bits and pieces involved, PO is the Big Kahuna once the wavelength is shorter than most of the shape features on the aircraft.
And in PO terms (think optical glint) the F-35 is a step back from the F-22, because if you filled in all the valleys and flattened the hills you'd have worse weight and drag than you already do.
The relationship between wavelength and feature size, plus the need for all-round stealth, is why the B-2 is a big flying wing, because the P-14 Tall King ran in VHF (meter class) frequencies where fins and tails and such like get resonant. And it is why UCAVs (which can't dodge or shoot back) share the same kind of manta-ray look.
Meanwhile, openly available software can solve Maxwell's equations for complex shapes (which is what stumped all low-RCS aircraft efforts until the mid-1970s). So in fact there is no reason that APA should not have the numbers as close as you can reasonably get. And that's why the trolls have no counter except posting silly pictures.
HH - You're right of course. Except that by the time JSF is in service and able to do something useful, it will be nearly 25 years since the RCS objective was obvious.
Last edited by LowObservable; 16th May 2013 at 12:44.