That is only if it is reflecting directly back to the Lidar. The geometry of a stealth fighter is such that it is more likely to deflect lights away from the source.
PLA 6th generation fighter thread
- Thread starter Blitzo
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Quickie
Colonel
"The geometry of a stealth fighter is such that it is more likely to deflect lights away from the source."
That doesn't require the surface to be shiny though. The most perfect stealth aircraft geometry will still have a signal reflecting back directly to the source.
Only shiny surfaces can fully utilize the principle of angle of reflection being equal to angle of incidence to avoid detection by the source of the LiDAR.. A perfectly shiny surface reflects nothing back in the direction the lidar came from unless the surface is perpendicular to the LiDAR beam.
any less than shiny surface will always reflect some portion of incoming LiDAR beam back in the direction it came from Regardless of the angle of the surface.
any less than shiny surface will always reflect some portion of incoming LiDAR beam back in the direction it came from Regardless of the angle of the surface.
That paint was a test to diffract IR spectrum, yeah they are already testing paint for IRST.
Depends on the material. It might be reflective in the optical spectrum, but most long range lasers are not in the optical.
Quickie
Colonel
If it has a lower wavelength than the visible optical range, then it will be back to infrared or far-infrared?
That's the point of the LIDAR then. The paint is designed to work against IRST but seems to be making things worst against search and track sensors in the optical range.
Theres a firm that propose some kind of laser splitter to augment the effectiveness of a LIDAR search system. Call it LIDARC I think. Not a lot of info on it, not sure if they are relevant. But I can see some kind of optical radar on 6th generation aircraft with the use of wingman sensors.
Quickie
Colonel
The problem is a stealth aircraft is not a perfect mirror but a complex geometrical shape. That is bound to be reflection back to the radar/sensors, which explains why stealth aircraft can still be detected at shorter ranges.
There are really 2 sides to it. You can have a perfect stealth paint that reflects EM waves perfectly but without much absorption or a stealth paint that maybe doesn't reflect EM wave that perfectly but does a great job of absorbing it. So far the real-world stealth aircraft are choosing the latter.
In what configuration?
Typically in modern civilian turbofan engines, you can achieve about a 15% improvement in fuel consumption from 1 generation to the next.
F-22 has a combat radius of 460 miles with just internal fuel according to this airforcemag article. Maybe it will be a little more if it flies all subsonic.
F-35A has a combat radius of about 1100 km according to online sources, but I'd imagine that's in an A2A profile.
I think it would actually be quite impressive if J-20 can achieve 1500 km with purely internal fuel. It'd probably have to be flying high subsonic and carrying just its standard AAMs.
I think comfortably achieving 1500 km combat radius with more than just A2A missiles is probably a pretty good goal for 6th gen aircraft. Maybe they can hit 1800 km with just A2a missiles.