An Interesting Interview on the F-35

[birdman]

Stealth tends to be optically stealthy as well.  clear long distance returns I suspect would be problematic.

Some very fancy sonic or thermal scanner might work.  I know that the F-117 and B-2 took measures to cool their exhausts, but cool enough an AIM7 won't lock on doesn't necessarily mean undetectable.

AIM-7 is a semi-active radar homing missile.
I assume you mean AIM-9

[dogmush]

Yeah........ I should have just typed Sidewinder. 

[birdman]

Yeah........ I should have just typed Sidewinder. 

 A former coworker of mine would be disappointed, he designed the first seeker for the original AIM-9 :)

They are now, but if you're making a stealth-seeking guidance package, you'd want to think outside the box a bit.

Physics gets in the way...tough to get reasonable gain, or any substantial directivity when the wavelength is 50x the diameter of the missile. 

[AJ Dual]

A former coworker of mine would be disappointed, he designed the first seeker for the original AIM-9 :)

Physics gets in the way...tough to get reasonable gain, or any substantial directivity when the wavelength is 50x the diameter of the missile. 

I think if you just put a long string on the enemy jet, and the missile chasing it reeled itself in, that would work pretty well.

[birdman]

I think if you just put a long string on the enemy jet, and the missile chasing it reeled itself in, that would work pretty well.

So like the opposite of an ALE-50?

[AJ Dual]

So like the opposite of an ALE-50?

Yes, Exactly! We just send in the speshul forcees to the enemy airstrip before the combat starts to attach the strings and missiles to their planes before they take off.

[BobR]

Well, if we are going back to WW2 tech for radar to find these things, we might as well go back a ways for air to air technology and bring back the AIR-2 Genie or AIM-26 Falcon. After all, close would be close enough. 

bob

[birdman]

Well, if we are going back to WW2 tech for radar to find these things, we might as well go back a ways for air to air technology and bring back the AIR-2 Genie or AIM-26 Falcon. After all, close would be close enough. 

bob

Never gonna happen, if we've given up using nukes on BMD interceptors (where it would actually work, and GE cheap), we aren't going to shoot planes with them :(

[Marnoot]

Well, if we are going back to WW2 tech for radar to find these things . . .

Let's forget radar altogether and go back to WW1 tech!



Though I'm not sure how you'd get a missile to use that tech for seeking . . .