I would picture it as being generally low flying and subsonic, preferably with the engines mounted midway in the body or wing roots and ducted to reduce IR emissions and decrease its sound signature. It probably should have super-cruise engines or some form of afterburner to give it the ability to popup and attack air or ground targets before disappearing back into the ground clutter, or to help it cover ground quickly when it has to.

I hadn't actually seen the A14 before, boy does it remind me of the Ho.229. Design wise I would see the plane having a somewhat similar shape for both stealth and other design reasons (payload, fuel capacity, etc.). Another design feature I would probably incorporate would be to remove the traditional glass cockpit and imbed the pilot cockpit flush inside the body of the aircraft, as the cockpit has always been a major source of trouble for decreasing the radar signature of a plane. The pilot would be able to see outside the plane using a camera network and helmet mounted display. I am uncertain though if it should be carrier capable or not, as that could just complicate the design due to the unique needs of Navy aircraft.

The key thing though is that this plane would have a rather small production run, as they would be too expensive and would not make sense as a replacement to more conventional craft.

As for the Nebo-M, only time will tell if it performs even half as well as claimed (wouldn't exactly be the first time Russia has exaggerated a platform's capability). I also would not be surprised if future developments in stealth technology can find a way around it, though.

I don't think ultra-maneuverability is that important a feature.

A reasonable amount of maneuverability is enough.

We're talking about a platform with an extremely sophisticated radar system which will also be backed up with link and contact data from AWACS radar aircraft, among other sensor info.

When you're taking your shots 20-30 miles away with an active radar missile, you can turn away to get some distance before the other guy's even in range to fire his missiles, if he even gets a lock on you in the first place (Stealth).

And ignoring all that, it only takes a split second of yanking the nose to get an IR missile shot off, and after that the bad guy's usually going to have to break off to evade, or he'll be hit.

Look at the examples of dogfighting in a sim/game like Flaming Cliffs (Lomac). Fights with missiles rarely devolve into scissors battles, it's usually finished in 1 or 2 reversals or even at the break, if it even gets that close. Probably more than 70% of all the fights are over at 20miles distance with a long range radar guided missile.

Nebo-M is a currently operated, mobile (15 minutes to set up) radar.

Getting stealth against it is not possible with existing known physical principles, due to the fact that the wavelength defeats both shaping and RAM coatings/structures. Even if such signature reduction measures were to be adopted, the growing radar power would still allow detection (at cost of murdering poor birds but still).

In my opinion stealth is/was overrated. Relying on it for survivability creates a single point of failure within the desighn, plus stealth is difficult if at all possible to imporve post production.

I get the impression you don't fly against other humans often (or maybe they are just not very good). In my experience guns only knife fights tend to happen quite a bit if the pilots involved are highly skilled/experienced. The reason is if you know what your doing it really isn't all that hard to evade modern missiles, particularly BVR shots, so long as you are paying attention. It does though take a lot of maneuverability and a lot of available energy to pull it off, however. Also you absolutely would get a maddog sent right back at you if I have you on radar or not, as I would know where you are because to get a BVR shot off you would either have to activate your own radar to find and lock on to me, or have a friend your data linked with who has their radar on as AWACs data is not accurate enough to shoot with. Either way I get a radar spike and would be ready. If your close enough to use IR missiles, your close enough to for me to probably get a radar lock, stealthy or no, if not you can be IR boresighted or via a helmet display, which means you also get an IR missile to play with too. Even stealthy modern fighter planes still have a fairly significant IR signature. Besides going to IR means we're now in a dogfight, where energy and maneuverability mean almost everything, which by the way was the real situation with that test pilot when taking the F-35 against the F-16D. The fact that an F-16D, while still carrying its drop tanks and full missile compliment, and could still out turn and out energy a clean F-35 in a dogfight, is very very bad, considering the role it is meant to play. A fighter plane that cannot dogfight is not a fighter plane.

My understanding of Nebo-M is that it does not entirely defeat stealth. Shaping still would work according to the various analyses I have read for the simple reason that shaping bends radar waves around the craft rather than sending them back. But the RAM coatings maybe not so much (though for all we know this gap may already be covered by reformulating the RAM). Of course since most current stealth jets rely heavily on RAM coatings with only partially shaped designs, they may be detectable at altitude. More importantly, VHF radar has a lot of issues when trying to detect and track low flying aircraft, particularly stealth aircraft when they are flying close to the ground, even with filtering it would be very easy for a stealth plane to become part of the noise.

Besides, if the Russian radar works so well as they claim against stealthy aircraft, do you not think the US would have quickly dropped the F-35. I mean why spend all those hundreds of billions of dollars if it doesn't really work? I guarantee that Lockheed Martin Skunkworks has access to comparable VHF radar systems to the Nebo-M, and would have tested the design against it. With their setup they can pretty much simulate just about any existing radar system in the world, and very accurately examine how stealthy a design is from all aspects against all the different radar types.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NP2kpNDwBEU

I both kind of agree and kind of don't. Stealth does not make sense for the main front line aircraft. But it can for highly specialized aircraft that could be used to blind the enemy deep inside their own territory. Some aspects can be changed and improved on post production, such as changing the skin material, switching RAM coatings (this has happened before with the F-117), and other minor tweaks. About the only thing you wouldn't change would be the airframe, though in theory even that would be possible.

Most stealth aircraft (ie F117A, F22A, JSF series, B2A to lesser extend) have shaping features that are either equal in size or smaller to the wavelength, but are not significantly larger than it.
This leads to a such interaction between the radiowave and the aircraft that the shaping features do not actually matter, the wavelength (by enlarge) ignores those.
RAM coatings wise, you either make those broadband and require RAM coatings/structures thickness to be on par or thicker than the wavelength, or you create narrowband RAM coastings/structures. This is why RAM coatings/structures are defeated by even shorter wavelengh radars of L-band (which also partially defeats shaping).

JSF is too big to fail, even if it's stealth (which comes from way back) is no longer a decisive factor. A purpose built, low level flight platform is another matter however, even though you could fit an L-band radar that could detect 0.005m2 RCS at 600km onto a plane.

In my opinion stealth sort of lost it's thunder back in 1987, with S300V2 (which had mobile long wavelength radar for target detection, surprise) coming around (unless you believe in the 0.00000000000001m2 RCS figures given for F117A and F22A) and rendered tactically (via fully mobile VHF/UHF and other radars) and strategically (via fielding of new long range means - such as beyound horizon radars) irrelevant, especially at high altitudes, as current airborne radar technology is still some ways behind the ground based stuff.

I've been flying combat sims (online) since Jane's F15 came out, all I can say is that I've never found maneuverability to be the most important issue in a fight. If the fight did devolve into close quarters it always ended within 30 seconds and 1-2IR missile shots.

Sure, you can evade missiles all day long but while you're doing that your enemy is just going to close distance while you can't shoot at him because you've lost your lock, or your missile range is going to be too short because you've lost energy evading the missiles, but he's still up high and now heading in the opposite direction. Besides that a good BVR fighter will send more than 1 missile your way on the first salvo and time the second one to really mess with your evasion efforts.

It all comes down to using the best features of your aircraft and the assets on your side in order to win.

You wouldn't try to dogfight a Zero in a P-38 would you? (I used to fly these exclusively online and racked up kills like crazy in both. Flying one like you'd fly the other would be a recipe for quick death). Fly your aircraft in a way that compliments its strengths. Just because an aircraft is maneuverable doesn't make it better than yours.

IMO the American side has better tools (Missiles, link data, etc) than the current Russian or Chinese offerings, and in the end that is what is most important, because I don't see any real F-35 vs F-16 engagements happening in the near future.

In the end who knows, it's in Russia's best interest to claim their brand new radar can easily detect any stealth plane, just as it is in the US's interests to keep their cards close to their chest and let Russia think it can do what they claim it does. Until the actual event of combat between these two systems, we really do not know which one would come out ahead, or where the truth lies.

Shaping alone never entirely works as the best it can hope to accomplish is decreasing the radar signature and lowering the detection range (which is the entire purpose of stealth, your not invisible, your just harder to detect). You can't eliminate all the possible radar returns by shaping alone. The big question is if there exist RAM coatings that still work or not. Plus of course there are other piloting tricks that can be used to defeat radar beyond NOE flying, even with non-stealthy aircraft.

As for radar detection it was already known that the F-117 had some detection problems even before the start of the F-35 design process, that was one of the reasons why it was fazed out (the other being the massive downtime and support/maintenance costs). So it doesn't make a huge amount of sense to add stealth capability at such a greater expense, knowing it doesn't work at all. But then again I seriously question a lot of the design decisions when it comes to the F-35, so who knows.


I've been messing around in flight sims since Microsoft Flight Simulator 1.0, all the way through to the present, and been flying versions of Falcon 4.0 from release to today (over two decades now), the IL-2 series, Rise of Flight, DCS and some of their study sims, and just about every single major helicopter simulation ever released for pc.

I can think of many occasions in Falcon 4 or DCS where I was in a guns only situation against another player because we had already expended all of our ordinance against each other or other players that had been already shot down. Including a few times where me and another player were so evenly matched you lost because you ran out of fuel.

I've killed plenty of players with maddog AIM-9 or AIM-120 shots who though they had me tied up with their missiles, particularly in BVR settings. Short of being bushwacked, it is exceedingly rare that I won't have a chance to fire back before going into evasive maneuvers. Ripple firing is also the norm. The key in BVR combat is preparation. Very skillful pilots can also generally maintain most of their energy while defeating missile threats, but you really need to understand the missile you are fighting.

I would consider booming and zooming a Zero in a P-38 to be dogfighting it, but no of course I would not try to turn with it. But then again with modern air weapons trying to boom and zoom is almost suicidal against a plane with all aspect IR missiles.

But this is exactly my point. The F-35 reportedly does not have either advantage as it has both poor energy management and poor maneuverability, it doesn't have either and still lost to a 3-4 decades old plane where the F-35 had every single advantage as far as load outs (F-16 have severe penalties to maneuverability and energy while carrying twin fueled drop tanks). The only thing going for this plane is its stealth features, which are utterly useless up close. This also means that the F-35 would have almost no chance of successfully evading a missile that has locked on to it.

If your fighting a plane that can turn like a Zero and has the speed and energy of a P-38, while your plane can't do either as well, and the other pilot is as skilled as you are, who do you think is going to win the fight?

This is why I am saying if the F-35 is performing as poorly as the test pilot claims, it is in serous trouble if it ended up in combat against a modern well equipped foe.

That I really do not agree with, in fact I think you have it backwards. For one thing modern Russian fighters are more dangerous than the F-16C/D (as much as I love the F-16, the C Block 52 are pretty much out matched), as they have better energy and maneuverability, and longer ranged weapons. Current gen missiles are also very scary and much harder to evade or fool than ever before. The biggest problem the US has is that it does not have any effective long range air to air missiles any more, where as Russia does. This means Russia has a huge advantage when it comes to a head to head BVR fight as they can shoot well before the US planes can shoot back. Even their IR missiles are longer ranged. This I think is one of the key reasons why the US has been going with stealthy plane designs like the F-35, to try to get the advantage back.

As far as I am aware RAM coatings issue is due to underlying basic physics, unless US not only had a theoretical breakthrough in radio physics on Ufimtsev level, but also a simmilar breaktrhough in relevant material science and implimented those breakthroughs, then such changes are not possible.

I am not aware of such breakthroughs. And, in all likelyhood, we would be if they did occur 10 years ago.

My point is that the improvements in radar technology outpaced the reach of stealth, as permitted by known physics principles. This was due to increases in power (ie new naval L-band radar with around 1.5 mega-watts of impulse power and 1.3 consumed), improvements in mobility. This would be further improved via the GaN and better modules becomming availiable in the near future (GaN gives around 40 percent average emited power efficiency vs 20 currently availiable).
Improvements in signal processing methods and means (multistatic arrays, reverse SAR) would further improve counter stealth detection to the point, where it becomes irrelevant, as you would be able detect tertiary effects of aircraft flying through air even if aircraft itself is invisible and primary/secondary effects are fully supressed.

Perhaps you are right, I don't know. Still my point remains, if stealth really is so ineffective, why is the US and other countries still investing so much money in its development and application. If the US has indeed found a way around the problems you mention, it would certainly be classified to the extreme. Even if it happened 10 years ago, that doesn't necessarily matter as there are still a number of highly classified projects going back 50 years now where still very little is known about them.

There are also a lot of other questions we can't answer either, such as the real world impact of these competing forms of technology. Such as even if the stealth planes can be detected and even tracked to a certain extent with newer ground based radar systems, can they really be effectively engaged with missiles, and/or aircraft, and what are the limitations as to range and other factors. Also what about the other methods of avoiding radar detection, particularly when coupled with stealth, how does that effect the equation.

Neither side can I think fully answer these questions, or be fully certain of either technology. Physics is always going to our best guesses (theories) based on the evidence we have at hand, and all of our theories are flawed because of this.

Lastly even if Russia really does have the technology to counter stealth. That in of itself does not mean a whole lot. Russia and NATO/US are very unlikely to come to direct head to head combat, and it will be quite a long while before most other countries will be able to afford to deploy such technology in any quantity for it to be of much use.

Stealth is still usefull in a number of roles. Because primary means for stealth detection (apart from optics, as those are weather dependent) use large apertures (either for high power*aperture or for long wavelengths), stealth still does offer some advantages, especially if coupled with otherwise capable platform (in terms of ECM/kinematics), as then it gives you an edge in engagements, for example in missile lock on probability (due to stealth, those would lock on at shorter ranges, thus increasing chance of evasive manuevers working out).

The problem here is that the improvements in electronics have led to a situation, where long wavelength radars (such as Nebo-M, Nebo-SVU and many others) allow for ARH missile guidance, as they now have sufficient accuracy for this. I could provide relevant calculations if you so desire. L-band and other high aperture*power AESA radars always had that accuracy in the first place.

Sure, Russia and NATO are unlikely to fight it out, but at the same time those counter stealth means are availiable for export and are affordable. For example beyound horizon radar set with 3000km range is priced at ~200m USD.

A few years back I watched very interesting documentary that was based on declassified info from Soviet archives. In the 70's Russian designers were saying that the way the aircraft designs had been progressing, we eventually would come to a time when the "better" plane's technology would become unaffordable. I think we are there now. F-22 took that direction, but accountants were telling the top brass that it's not realistic to purchase fighter planes at that price. I think that's why everything got downgraded to F-35. We are basically at a crossroads for modern avionics. That very same documentary showed how they experimented with technology that allows people control environment with the power of their mind. Truly Jedi stuff! They collected people from all over the USSR with paranormal abilities and were studying them. They showed one guy who was standing on scales and was able to decrease his weight just by his mind power :) You can actually see the scale indicator move. So the direction they had decided to take is to learn how to control and fly the planes with human power I guess. It sounds funny I know, but they actually had achieved some serious results from all that. of course most of it is still classified. After the collapse of the Soviet Union however, many of these scientists immigrated to Israel and the country had become the leader in "western world" in military technologies controlled by human brain. So perhaps it is time for US Air Force to begin development of a completely new way to fly the planes. Maybe they already doing that, we will never know till its all done. These F-35's are simply there to fill the gap between what we call conventional flight and future tech.

In current exchange rates Su35S for RuAF costs something on the lines of 32m USD per plane.