USAF describes radar cross section of F/A-22 and F-35

The U.S. Air Force, in it’s effort to get money to build more F-22s, has revealed just how “stealthy” the F-22 is. It’s RCS (Radar Cross Section) is the equivalent, for a radar, to a metal marble. The less stealthy (and much cheaper) F-35, is equal to a metal golf ball. The F-35 stealthiness is a bit better than the B-2 bomber, which, in turn, was twice as good as that on the even older F-117.

Link


I remember watching tv a couple years ago, they said F/A-22 RCS was equal to a golf ball, and F-35 RCS was equal to a basketball. But now we see they are actually smaller. And that B-2 RCS was equal to a bumble bee.

Makes you wonder just how accurate this is, or if they made it sound a little worse than it actually is.

The U.S. Air Force, in it’s effort to get money to build more F-22s, has revealed just how “stealthy” the F-22 is. It’s RCS (Radar Cross Section) is the equivalent, for a radar, to a metal marble. The less stealthy (and much cheaper) F-35, is equal to a metal golf ball. The F-35 stealthiness is a bit better than the B-2 bomber, which, in turn, was twice as good as that on the even older F-117.

Someone better come up with a better source for that F-117 claim, among those other mentions concerning the F-22, F-35, and the B-2, than strategypage.com.

Accordingly, might want to hit this for comparisons?
Radar Cross Section







seekerof

[edit on 26-11-2005 by Seekerof]

wow...So the F-22 is actually the Stealthiest bird in the USAF's collection.

so much for the B-2 being the undisputed stealthy champ.

I kinda like how, in order to keep the money flowing in the Raptors direction they keep giving us more info on its capabilities.

That table doesn't ring true at all to me, though it does make my beloved Typhoon look better than I thought it was in this area

I had my doubts when scanning down it anyway but when I see the SR-71 being SO stealthy despite being a big mach 3 bird and being built and deployed a decade before stealth research got into its stride makes me tend to think someone just made a wish list. In the 70's I remember a record breaking transatlantic run by an SR-71 and UK radars at Fylingdales here in Yorkshire tracked its progress from way out over the Atlantic.

[edit on 26-11-2005 by waynos]

Seekerof

If find it hard to believe that according to your table the B-52 is just below a F-4 (thought the figures aare the same). I know the F-4 was big but not as big as the BUFF, and both have no stealth design features or utilised RAMs

Also I am surprised how low the SR-71 is as it is a BIG aircraft amazing result for an aircraft designed in the earl 60's

Als NWguy83 strategypage.com does say the USAF release this info, but does not proivde any link or source for this USAF release. I am thinking that if the USAF did make such a release it would have been widely reported and at a minimum Janes would have reported it.

I suspect that the puvlic ddoes not know the truth on this one.

[edit on 26-11-2005 by Popeye]

One of the reasons that stealth R&D began inside Skunkworks was the realisation that the Radar cross section of the Blackbird was so small. Although it was an 'accident' they gave them an starting point. Plus when they found a Russian study on how radar waves worked and decided to take those principles onto a plane.

The SR-71 cross section is a testament of Kelly Johnson's genius and how like any art masterpiece it transcends its intention and goes beyond the authors imagination.

To supplement Seekerof's post, here are the figures on the 22 & 35 according to Aviation Week:

"From the front, the F/A-22's signature is -40dBsm (the size of a marble) while the F-35's is -30 dBsm (the size of a golf ball). The F-35 is said to have a small area of vulnerability from the rear because engineers reduced cost by not designing a radar blocker for the engine exhaust."

Aviation Week & Space Technology; 11/14/2005, page 27

I personally think they could have found a better way of making their case than making such data public.

The contents of the table posted by seekerof has no credibility whatsoever.
There is no official disclosure about the exact RCS values and the table only contains wannabe guesses imho.

A further thought occurs to me re the SR-71 being so highly rated in the RCS table, it is fairly well accepted that the F-117 was highly compromised and used faceted design because it was the best that 1970's computers could handle, or sentiments to that effect. Now look at the SR-71, this airframe, the design of which started in the '50's with not a 'facet' in sight, is supposedly one of the stealthiest aeroplanes in the world? Sorry but that has got to be absolute hokum.

There may or may not be some truth in the story thats its lower than expected RCS inspired future research, I don't know, but that is a very long way from justifying the values given in that table. That fact coupled with the B-52 somehow magically having the same RCS as the F-4 Phantom, as Popeye pointed out, (and remeber these three planes all date from well before RCS value was a design consideration at all!) convinces me that the table is utter nonsense.

I do however believe the original point of this thread as posted by NWguy83. Speaking of which seekerof's table almost looks as if it was created explicitly to make the F-15 look bad?

[edit on 26-11-2005 by waynos]

[edit on 26-11-2005 by waynos]

The table must be referring to the front on RCS. Theres no way it deals with under carriage RCS or top down. After looking at the figures, it must be front on looking RCS, and in this case, I buy all the data. Looking at the front on design of each plane, It seems legit.

Train

It would make more sense as a reference of frontal RCS and reading the original link more carefully it does say this on aerospaceweb. However I still think the figures are a bit random and/or exaggerated (esp SR-71) and cannot fathom why a B-52, complete with its EIGHT exposed engine fans, is not the biggest by a mile.

What blows me away is the RCS of the Bird of Prey, that number is so small, its not even worth mentioning, they should have just put INVISIBLE. That is one hell of a RCS.

Train

Is it not alot more complicated than just one RCS...


Doesn't the wavelength of the radar used not have an impact on effective cross-section?

So they cannot say A has a RCS of, and B has a RCS of.



I find it hard to believe an F-22 is stealthier than a B-2 either.

[edit on 26-11-2005 by kilcoo316]

Originally posted by Murcielago
wow...So the F-22 is actually the Stealthiest bird in the USAF's collection.

so much for the B-2 being the undisputed stealthy champ.

I kinda like how, in order to keep the money flowing in the Raptors direction they keep giving us more info on its capabilities.

Generally when the military starts disclosing their secrets like stealth etc in great detail they have something up their sleeves that is much more advanced. For every calendar year the militarys technology advances 44.5 years

Originally posted by BigTrain
What blows me away is the RCS of the Bird of Prey, that number is so small, its not even worth mentioning, they should have just put INVISIBLE. That is one hell of a RCS.

Train

I agree thats crazy If we are talking about golfball, marble sizes for these other planes what the heck would a Bird of Prey be?

Tic tac size

Originally posted by magnito_student

Generally when the military starts disclosing their secrets like stealth etc in great detail they have something up their sleeves that is much more advanced. For every calendar year the militarys technology advances 44.5 years

Agreed... unless they are bluffing here.

i hate to add to that tables "list of roasts" but can anyone explain to me why is says the F-15 has a RCS of 4,305 squard feet! WTF is that lol its not even close to that big lol

makes you wonder if the f35's replacement has already been made

Originally posted by Lamagraa
i hate to add to that tables "list of roasts" but can anyone explain to me why is says the F-15 has a RCS of 4,305 squard feet! WTF is that lol its not even close to that big lol

Radar cross section has nothing to do with actual size. if these are frontal then the F15 makes sense because the radar is looking at the face of two big engines.
Having said that, the whole converasation of comperable radar cross sections is tricky because it all depends on where the radar beam is coming from. What they do when they design a stealth aircraft is use angles and shape to reduce radar reflectivity and this will result in a few areas that have big returns. In these areas they use lots of radar absorbing materials.