RIP F-22 and F-35: How Russia or China Could Shoot Down America's Stealth Fighters

Dave Majumdar

Security,

We explain the tech behind the idea. 

Once either China or Russia manages to put together a long wave IRST, high-speed data-links, and the computers and algorithms for multi-ship sensor fusion, the ability of U.S. fifth-generation fighters to operate independently will diminish.

With Boeing and the United States Navy explaining in detail how a combination of long-wave infrared search & track combined with high-speed multi-ship data networking and advanced sensor fusion algorithms can generate a weapons quality track on an enemy stealth fighter, it is only a matter of time before adversaries such as Russia and China develop similar capabilities.

(This first appeared last year.)

Both Moscow and Beijing have most of the elements needed to develop and field counter-stealth technologies similar to that demonstrated by the U.S. Navy and Boeing during Fleet Exercise 2017 onboard a pair of modified F/A-18E/F Super Hornets using a combination of the powerful DTP-N processor, TTNT high-speed IP-based data-network and the long-wave Block II Infrared Search and Track (IRST) pod. The U.S. Navy will be fielding its new counter-stealth capabilities in the coming years as the Block III Super Hornet enters service in 2022. Given that both the Russians and the Chinese possess the individual elements of all the required technologies to replicate the U.S. Navy’s capabilities, it is only a matter of time before Moscow and Beijing start to field similar counter-stealth abilities.

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