thunderchief
Senior Member
Not Really, Stealth is a descriptor of aircraft that practice the art of L/O, and it is an art form. No one else besides LockMart seems to have a lock on L/O in the fighter world, the F22 and the F-35 stand as the current gold standard of L/O, the Russians admit they don't have a real handle on those technologies, so they throw a bunch of dust in the air, and mutter a bunch of "mumbo-jumbo", like a bad magician.
the Chinese may have a very stealthy aircraft in the J-20, we just don't know? but with all the alleged data breaches, attributed to the Chinese, they obviously are very interested?? NO??
So my advice is that before you go "sniping" at the F-35, which as you and I both know is called the joint "strike" fighter, that you take off your "rose colored" glasses and share the same criticisms with the J-20, J-31, and PAK-FA, or FGFA. The F-22 production was cancelled and the F-35 the "Golden Child" and saved, because the F-35 promises to be a winner on the battlefield of tomorrow?? I agree that even here in its infancy, it is very good, the US Marines are convinced? maybe you ought to follow the people who put their money where their mouth is?
That is the whole point How would you define low observability ? At what range would, let's say , Russian Su-30 SM detect F-35 in clean configuration, using current sensors and those deployed in future ? At what range would F-35 detect Su-30, with current and future jamming equipment ? Would that be enough to shoot (and hit) first ? Btw, Russians are claiming that their aircraft (PAK FA) is stealthier then F-35 . But, how would we supposed to verify or disprove that if we don't have enough parameters to solve equation ?
Unfortunately for F-35, what we could confirm is that this aircraft is not particularly fast and it has mediocre maneuverability, especially compared to F-22 and PAK FA . As for J-20, I would bet it is faster then F-35, don't know about turning ability , at least with current engines . J-31 is too immature to comment , although it looks lot cleaner then F-35 .