All the missions accomplished by the F-117 after the first day of the war could have been accomplished with non-stealth aircraft. The F-117 was a special purpose plane designed to go after critical air defense assets on the first day of the war with the soviets. It was great for this task, and then it still would be useful for the rest of the WW3. The reason it worked so well in the Gulf War is that our enemies had no idea what it looked like, so they did not know how to counter. Yes, sometimes USA intelligence wins versus the KGB.
Once the shape of the plane was know, it was shot down with a radar that was in service before 1982 and a SA-2 over the Balkans. And if great enough threat, the Soviets know what it looks like, and the soviets last longer; the soviets likely develop a SA-2ish weapon with better terminal homing.
The shape of the plane? That is baloney, full and simple. What matters directly is the radar cross section of the aircraft and what it does which would increase it, and thus give it a higher predictability of being detected and allowed to be engaged. To point out, Colonel Dani (who commanded the 250th Air Defense Missile Brigade which shot down an F-117), had said that they modified their radars so as to have an easier detection when the wheel well or bomb bay doors were open. It is likely that the Soviets would have developed some kind of work around in order to detect the F-117, but it might have just been for something like a single missile brigade or so at first until they actually manage to shoot down an aircraft, and from there, it would take time to implement throughout the rest of the available air defenses (those not already being destroyed by Nighthawks). Finally, stealth was never considered foolproof by the military, unlike in popular culture.
Also, slight correction. It was an SA-3 Goa which took down an F-117, and not an SA-2 Guideline.
You mean telling that they are developing them and then not building them ? The most recently aircraft that entered service is the JF-17, which is basically a super upgraded MiG-21. All other "stealth" prototypes (J-20, J-31 PAK FA) seem to have stealth features, but far less than the US planes and just seem to have them to lower their detectability a bit while keeping other aircraft capabilities that the F-35 clearly doesn't have (speed, maneuverability) and being far cheaper than the F-22.
Other countries are just saying fuck it (like European countries mostly) and just continue to develop their latest plane that they know are sufficient to bomb the shit out of assholes in pickup trucks in the desert, because they know that no one will be starting a fight with a first rate military anytime soon.
What opposition was there ? In the first gulf war the F-117 was unknown and no counter measure to it could be created, and the Iraqi air force was overwhelmed anyway. In Kosovo the US lost 2 aircraft, one of them an F-117. The B-2 was bascally useless in this war a B-52 would have done the same job easily (or any smaller aircraft capable of carrying a JDAM.
The problem with stealth aircraft is that they are useless against people who don't have the tech to build good radars because they usually don't have a good enough army to start with and cheaper aircraft would be more cost efficient(and that is not even speaking about the kind of war that the western powers are fighting right now), and world power who have the capacity to build stealth aircraft also have the capacity to fund research of better radars against stealth aircrafts, rendering them less efficient too (and the probability of two nuclear power going to war is very low anyway). Stealth aircrafts are only usefull for the first few days against a mid level power to destroy their air defense so that conventional aircraft can operate freely. And you don't need a lot of them for that.
Well, what other countries are saying fuck it and developing the latest plane in that context? Because pretty much nearly all major aircraft developments are focused on drastically reducing the radar cross section of the aircraft. Both the Typhoon and Rafale were designed with radar cross section reduction in mind, so that statement is entirely false.
I know that for the A/F-X, it was planned that in engagements for the first couple of days (to week depending upon time to destroy the enemy air defense), they were planned to run with just about full internal loads of munitions to knock out air defenses, before switching to also carrying ordnance externally. But if nations developed aircraft with significantly reduced radar cross section, you'd also need to develop them to counter them and so on.
Something else, what about the XF32, the main competitor of the F35 in the flyoff competition. Without the F35, would it ever have a chance? Would in retrospect the F32 have been the better choice or would it just have had the same problems twice as big? Or was the whole set of specifications a no-starter to begin with?
On the other hand, when the F16 was chisen for the air force, the navy went ahead and asked.if the competitor, the YF17 could.be developed into a shipborne fighter for their own needs. This eventually became the F18. Would it have been simpler if.the F35 was ordered for the air force only with the navy going for a YF32-NextGen? And the marines for .... dunnow... a VH22 Osprey gunship?
NextGe
The XF-32 would
not have been developed without the Joint Strike Fighter Program in play, which created the F-35, which is what I presumed this thread was about. As I mentioned twice before in thread, if the DoD/Congress had decided not to force the programs together, the USAF and USMC would have gone with continuing the development of the Common Affordable Lightweight Fighter, while the USAF and USN would have gone with the development of the A/F-X. The CALF was intended to replace the F-16, F-18 (for the USMC), and the AV-8B Harrier; the A/F-X was intended to be a long-range strike aircraft (while being a fighter second), replacing the A-6, F-15E, F/A-18C/D/E/F, and F-111.
