Which Is The Best Enemy Airspace Infiltrator: F-117 Nighthawk or F-35 Lightning II? | DCS 

Seeing the f117 at the Regan Library I had the same takeaway, it was much smaller than I expected. Especially compared to the F14 next to it.

@@jkull173 F-14 isn't really a reference is it :p That thing is a flying barn lol. Also, it would make sense to make a stealth plane small.

Actually find that kind of funny, back in 1992 I got to view an F-117 up and very close down at Alamogordo, the Air Force Base. My best friend from high school was stationed down there and literally was in charge the life-support systems on that aircraft. I was able to go on base and visit with him and he gave me kind of a tour. His Co of the Squadron he was in, took us both under his wing and took cash out on the flight line to one of the hangers where I got to go up and see the F-117 in person. In all honesty I didn't think it was that small, at least from my perspective which was no closer than 5 feet. But the one thing I really did think was cool being in a aircraft Hangar that was dimly lit it literally felt like it was sucking all the light into it almost like a black hole. And that was always my one big takeaway from that aircraft

There is an F-117 getting restored to be a museum piece for the SAC museum here in Nebraska (halfway between Omaha and Lincoln). The restoration hangar has a viewing window, and you can see that they're replacing half of the plane with wood bits, then painting it black with paint you get at Home Depot. I do know from some books I own that the paint is classified, and that the leading and trailing edges of the wings are made of dielectric plastic. Radar hits the wing leading edges, and absorbs into the plastic, turning the radio energy into heat. That means no radar ping echo will ever return back to the radar dish that made it. They also had to cover the gaps in the panels and plane with some kind of putty, making that the single most labor intensive part of the plane flight, which later got made better using some sort of speed-tape. It turns out the panel edges are where most of your reflected energy comes from, so you need to have a plane with no gaps.

@@weirdguy564 crazy that it still is top secret...that's stuff from the 70's

That was awesome!

Let’s go, Brand0n! :P

Those missile chases were epic

I think it was because he is soooo Dutch!

🇳🇱🇳🇱🇳🇱🇳🇱🇳🇱

I thought they were retired? That is awesome news though

yea they around being used for r&D and testing from what i have heard

Makes you wonder how stealthy the f-117 would be with modern Radar absorbent materiel and design.

@@Daneoid81 It would probably look a lot more like an F-35. The Nighthawk was an incredible piece of technology that revolutionised air warfare, but it was also very compromised to enable it to work as a stealth aircraft.

​@@trollerifficBeside the B 2, I, liked the F 117 design..cool plane!

Yep I had the f19 computer simulation game and I always had a blast flying that thing

I was thinking the same thing, and hearing the intro music in my head.

they had great ideas implemented back then... e.g. the radar emitters on the MFD map along with the detection level indicator (maybe not realistic, but great for gameplay). Different ground radars required different flight path to delay detection (beaming for PD, but flying straight towards non-PD radars IIRC). Somehow the maps felt more crowded then some scenarios in DCS... you had radar stations, boats, aircraft on patrol. flying very slow and low (autopilot off since it's minimum height was relative high) could help a lot to sneak past enemy units. It was one of the sims that gave the impression there is a complete scneario. DCS missions feel like scripted missions: huge map, but to keep the FPS up most of the map is empty (in terms of units). Though this will maybe going to change now that we have MT.

@@slowhornet4802 precisely. Only problem I see was that while low and slow approach worked great, it did not result in a higher risk of engagement by an accidental nearby manpads/AA/optically guided SAMs as these were absent. In contrast, in LHX flying low was great for a stealthy run, but you could be also surprised by a Shilka, or just a dude with an AK/Igla as you got within their reach suddenly.

There are also Feliway wipes and sprays, which dont require an outlet… but do need more frequent application.

Growlers of the USN together with a lot of WW assets.

Unfortunately dcs does not allow for the area jamming that growlers and ravens provide

Love it!

Thanks for this information!

thxx

oooOO lucky you!

that'll be the F-302 😂😂

@@turtoiseanvideos For me, S:AAB's SA-43 Endo/Exo-Atmospheric Attack Jet is the dogs bollocks.

@@jansenart0 Huh. Don't know the show, never heard of it. Thx for drawing my attention to it, haha!

@@turtoiseanvideos Channel is @ODavies and he's done a lot of other abandoned TV stuff.

agree

And the same with f-35

Fair comment.

@@grimreapersit’s huge by any means. The tail plane and tail booms plus the serrated exhaust nozzle and the engine is mounted forward and thus is shielded from most directions. About the same as f-22. Plus the 35 sensors will let it know where radar/heat seeker is coming from and intimate a direction change to hide as as possible something non of the other stealth can do

I'm trying to make contact with the guy that did the actual RCS modelling to discuss. Will try to get him on for a vid.

thx

I don't think their rcs are that similar, they just use it to simulate fighting stealth aircraft, also it is used to simulate cruise missiles and other classified purposes.

@@agggrgrg2419 since the F117 was designed in the 70s and flying in the 80s I bet the RDS is more similar to new Chinese and Russian stealth. While not an exact copy, much closer than our newest latest and greatest.

@@oldrabidus2230 perhaps, I don't think they match the 0.003 figure GR listed. Also the F-117 sacrifices a lot for stealth that a fighter cannot giving it an edge up.

​@@oldrabidus2230 honestly I highly doubt that the Russian aircraft are even still, more like low observability. And for most of the reading and research I've done it seems like they're nowhere close to even F-117

@@Wyomingchief Maybe. But the Clintons probably sold the tech to the highest bidder years ago.

I do have this album.

It's not more stealthy than the F-35, it's just no one cares to use the correct figure or research further. Two United States Air Force Generals have already stated the F-35 is much more stealthy than the F-22, but here is the full story. - - - - - - - - The 0.005 figure was given as a 2005 estimate. [QUOTE] November 25, 2005: 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. Much older aircraft, like the B-52, have a huge RCS, which makes them very easy to spot on radar. But with a smaller RCS, it's more likely that the aircraft won't be detected at all. [END QUOTE] - - - - - - - - However, once the F-35 was built, the advancements in stealth technology indicated it exceeded this value. [QUOTE] As of May 31 [2011], Griffiths said, the Edwards F-35s had flown a total of 2,513 test points against a plan of 1,995. As of that date, the F-35A was hitting all of its key performance parameters, and radar cross-section testing is exceeding specifications. [END QUOTE] - - - - - - - - As more data came in, it turns out the F-35 is stealthier than the F-22. This is from two United States Air Force Generals [QUOTE] The F-35’s cross section is much smaller than the F-22’s, but that does not mean, Hostage concedes, that the F-35 is necessarily superior to the F-22 when we go to war. [END QUOTE] [QUOTE] "I would say that General Hostage … is accurate in his statement about the simple stealthiness of the F-35 [with regard] to other airplanes," Bogdan said in the interview. The statement was accurate for radar cross section, as measured in decibels, and range of detectability, he said, and he scoffed at the notion that anyone can tell how stealthy an aircraft is just by looking at it. [END QUOTE] - - - - - - - - Later, the Chief of Low Observability for the B-2 bomber notes the F-35 borrows a lot of techniques from the bomber. In this interview they also noted the advancement that makes the F-35 so stealthy. The airframe itself is made of a stealth material, it's not just a coating. [QUOTE] On a radar map, a 747 would appear the size of a hot air balloon and an F-16 would look like a beach ball. Drill down to legacy stealth aircraft and Lockheed’s F-117 Nighthawk would show up as a golf ball while an F-22 Raptor might appear as a pea. With the F-35, Lockheed is getting down to pebble size, according to Robert Wallace, senior manager for F-35 flight operations. Wallace, a former chief of low-observability for the US Air Force’s B-2 bomber, says the F-35 has leveraged LO qualities from the bomber - but he could not elaborate on specifics. Pilots will see a more advanced low-observable signature on the F-35 versus the F-22, but it’s the maintainers who see the greatest leap in durability. [END QUOTE] - - - - - - - - Even pilots who migrate from the F-22 to the F-35 corroborate this information [QUOTE] During a flight debriefing, Col. Chris Niemi and Maj. Nash Vickers both said a comparison of the radar-absorbing F-35 to its nimble but less stealthy twin-engine F-22 cousin might not reveal the whole story. Niemi has eight years in the cockpit of an F-22 and is one of the few Air Force pilots who is qualified in both the Raptor and the F-35 Lightning II. He said he wanted to set the record straight on the Lightning II, once and for all. “Many have compared the F-22 to the F-35 but that comparison is unfair. With the F-35 Lightning, this fighter sees better, has more range, and is stealthier than any of its predecessors. This airplane, with its fly by wire technology, is super easy to fly and it has a very linear response.” [END QUOTE] - - - - - - - - So the F-35 is stealthier than legacy stealth platforms and there's several interviews and congress testimonies that highlight this fact. It's just people don't read those things. It's so interesting to me that the 2005 figure is the one that sticks and no one has bothered to read or watch the recent documentaries on this. If you want to read these sources in complete, you can find them here: www.reddit.com/r/Dragon029/comments/30fa43/f35_vs_f22_b2_stealth_claims/

I suspect that they have different performance at different frequencies.

It's not supposed to be though. I do see some figures supporting an RCS of 0.003 for the F-117, however the military has factually stated the F-35 has a lower RCS than the nighthawk and some figures in papers put out by the Navy have stated 0.0015 for the F-35, which according to them, is comparable to the B-2, which is supposed to have half the RCS of the F-117. The F-22 is supposed to be the king of frontal RCS with 0.0001-0.0002.

The F-117 is designed for stealth, that’s it. The F-35 is a far more capable platform that does a lot more things.

@@Justanotherconsumer Still engeneering develops inside of 4 decades

It's a nominal figure that does not change with payload.

Even before then there was Project Rainbow to reduce the RCS of the U2 (although that was a modification rather than incorporating stealth features in the design). The Lockheed A-12 was probably the first aircraft to incorporate radar stealth into its design through the use of shape, coatings, non-metallic materials and a special fuel blend to reduce reflectivity of the engine exhaust.

Sadly I don't have the rights to re-distribute modded versions of other people's planes :( You can download the ships and ground vehicles though.

Strange.

What RCS did you set the F-117 to?

@@grimreapers I didn't change anything, just used the vanilla F-117 as is lol

Not sure about real life but in game it's very high.

Mossie wasn't remotely stealthy. Its RCS was probably lower than one of the big bombers, but that's not saying much.

Neg sorry, I don't have the rights to re-distribute modded versions of other people's mods.

yarp

F-117 also looks like Draken and sr-71 had got a little baby!

Yeh, that was harder than I thought.

rgr

You don't want to be supersonic in a stealth plane like the F-117. The sonic boom would tell everyone where you are.

@@RaderizDorret Heats up the airframe as well and needs more engine power so greater heat output from them.

@@trolleriffic There's also the differences in aerodynamic forces involved. The F-117 was notoriously a bit of a pain to handle even with its fly by wire setup. Going supersonic would really screw with its handling characteristics plus I'm not sure the airframe could handle those kinds of loads. Plus there's the issue of transonic drag which is why so many supersonic craft from the 1950s and 1960s have the "coke bottle" fuselage to assist in shedding said drag.

Thanks, sorry, long time since I did maths at school.

And also JDAMS have been in service since 1997 and the F117 was retired in 2008

It appears so.

Did you watch their flyover salute to the queen? Ain't no way in hell they'd ever be able to pull off a coordinated meet up and fly by formation. Not being mean I'm a patreon and I support them but that's just way Beyond most capabilities

Thanks Sir!

Fair comment.