PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - F-35 Cancelled, then what ?
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Old 28th Mar 2016, 09:34
  #9072 (permalink)  
MSOCS
 
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Bevo, in your example above, the 0.1m2 stealth aircraft (with external stores) is still much more stealthy than a 10m2 Sukhoi with external stores, by 2 OOM in fact. I really do appreciate the non-additive, non-linear relationship of such things. On balance, external stores will affect a stealth platform in a much more severe way than a non-stealth platform. The former are optimised against LO requirements, whereas the latter are either blissfully inconsiderate of it or treated to make a design as good as one can.

Thankfully, aerodynamic shaping on weapons fortuitously means that Rayleigh scattering/specular reflection prevents ~14000m2 being seen at the radar in reality; well, at the more offensive aspects anyway.

A stealth aircraft with external stores is still more stealthy than a non-stealth aircraft with external stores. It isn't as doom and gloom as some people like to make out. Of course, if I were LockMart I'd be developing pylons and weapons that were optimised to the F-35 and not just bolt-on bits of orthogonal metal.
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