Not to go off topic too much but are there USAF F-35 physically stationed in any of the East Asian bases for the long term?
J-20 5th Generation Fighter VII
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I mean, visual tracking is inconsistent and isn't exactly precise enough. Not to mention how are those optical satellites supposed to get height information of the target?
Small sound recording stations intalled everywhere on first and second island chain and arround airfields could do the trick of monitoring movements, liftoffs and types of aircrafts 24hours a day without a lot of processing and cost. It could even surpass satellites to track stealth aircraft. You can determine kill zones and send J-20 for interception.
If you have a fleet of spy satellites big enough to have near continuous observation of airfields to detect liftoff of stealth aircrafts, you can scramble jet accordingly. Cloud cover, smoke, laser dazzling could deter that and time on station of satellites is quite small so you need a big number of them. For naval asset, ships are way easier to track so you can deny carrier groups fighters with evaluating the best area to cover for interception.
Detecting tankers deserving stealth fighters would be way easier if they are going in long range mission. Denying access of tanker is mission kill.
In any case, against a stealth fighter, another stealth fighter is the best weapon and the end of the kill chain. Having more fuel and range is clearly an asset in that case.
I don't know any. There is an F-22 squadron in rotational deployment in Kadena. It was brought there after multiple F-15 squadrons got pulled back. There are also 2 more F-35B squadrons by the USMC. No permanent USAF F-35s.
Not that it can't happen
The problem is visible spectrum and IR track is too dependent on weather and time. At any acceptable level of detection performance, you are going to have a tiny FoV for any practical satellite. Then there are problems with persistence.
So you might get to track a few aircraft from their take-off if you have good persistence over its area of operation.
You need radars on satellites. Radars have a good range at good volume scanning rates. But looking downward comes with problems here. This is an emerging tech. And China is indeed working on it. You can find many research articles like this:
J-20 releasing flares/chaff in an aerial combat exercise.
An Ultra large aperture array will require crazy amount of power. Sounds to me like a very theoretical simulation with very far off applications.
I don't think it is right to underestimate American F-35 counts. Sure the base limit how many can be deployed at once, but if there are loss there can still be replacement. Hence all of American F-35 should be accounted, PLA is just not fighting all of them at once.
Is there any data on the maintenance of the J-20?
From what can be understood from the Finnish F-35 purchase contract is that the maintenance of the invisible "paint" of the aircraft is incredibly complex and expensive, I seem to remember that half of the contract was the refurbishment of Finnish airbases for the aircraft.
If you destroy these maintenance hangars you quickly degrade the F-35 of its greatest advantage, which is invisibility and in general what the whole aircraft depends on, which is a bit stupid if the war drags on and doesn't last just a few weeks ...
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