Forum: F-22A Raptor

Absolutely not. Its not cold because of the temperature, its simply void of IR wavelength emissions through the glass. Notice the Typhoon is facing bottom side to the flir. Its glass would look cool, too.

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madrat wrote:

Notice the Typhoon is facing bottom side to the flir.

You certain about that? It doesn't look that way to me, anyone else?

Last edited by jetnerd on Jul 26, 2010 - 03:49 PM; edited 1 time in total

madrat wrote:

Absolutely not. Its not cold because of the temperature, its simply void of IR wavelength emissions through the glass. Notice the Typhoon is facing bottom side to the flir. Its glass would look cool, too.

I also assumed the Typhoon shot to be keel-on, or we'd at least see SOME differentiation of the canopy against the fuselage - unless the canopy and its surrounding hull have identical IR-reflectivities, the only way the canopy would look invisible in the photo.

[Edit: Deleted my original statement about "glass". Re-thought the situation and realized that transparent materials in general will tend to absorb radiation rather than reflect it, not just in the visible spectrum but also a little beyond it - explains dark windows on a/c in IR images]

Naturally it is difficult to limit a high performance jet's IR signature. But didn't British pilots say they had trouble locking on with IR weapons?

lampshade111 wrote:

Naturally it is difficult to limit a high performance jet's IR signature. But didn't British pilots say they had trouble locking on with IR weapons?

No it was a RAAF (Australian) exchange pilot flying F-15Cs for one of the Nellis based USAF aggressor squadrons and he said "he couldn't put his weapons on it". This could mean as much (or few) as his aircraft wasn't manoeuvrable enough to point the aircraft's nose at the Raptor. If armed with guns and boresight limited AIM-9Ms only this doesn't mean that he wouldn't have been able to lock on with the AIM-9M, but that he couldn't get it into the missile seeker acquisition envelope due lack of manoeuvrability/agility.

shep1978 wrote:

madrat wrote:

Notice the Typhoon is facing bottom side to the flir.

You certain about that? It doesn't look that way to me, anyone else?

I'm positive. The air intake is clearly below the rest of the body.

Scorpion82 wrote:

lampshade111 wrote:

Naturally it is difficult to limit a high performance jet's IR signature. But didn't British pilots say they had trouble locking on with IR weapons?

No it was a RAAF (Australian) exchange pilot flying F-15Cs for one of the Nellis based USAF aggressor squadrons and he said "he couldn't put his weapons on it". This could mean as much (or few) as his aircraft wasn't manoeuvrable enough to point the aircraft's nose at the Raptor. If armed with guns and boresight limited AIM-9Ms only this doesn't mean that he wouldn't have been able to lock on with the AIM-9M, but that he couldn't get it into the missile seeker acquisition envelope due lack of manoeuvrability/agility.

The whole quote is this:

"I can't see the [expletive deleted] thing," said RAAF Squadron Leader Stephen Chappell, exchange F-15 pilot in the 65th Aggressor Squadron. "It won't let me put a weapons system on it, even when I can see it visually through the canopy. [Flying against the F-22] annoys the hell out of me."

I don't see manouverability concept in the statement above, it looks more as it was referring to electronical/visual contrast (i can't see.. even when i can see it visually...).
Just my opinion.

The most likely explanation for the oft repeated RAAF pilot's statement is kinematics. The AIM-9M can't hit anything much beyond 8km and my guess is that by the time an F-18 pilot can get the seeker to see the F-22 the F-22 is out of range. It seems so obvious but there's been thousands of posts about this.

madrat wrote:

Absolutely not. Its not cold because of the temperature, its simply void of IR wavelength emissions through the glass. Notice the Typhoon is facing bottom side to the flir. Its glass would look cool, too.

watching the whole video it seems to me that the tiffy was facing his canopy on the camera like the raptor too (and even f-16)

Take in consideration that heat from friction doesnt come before much higher speeds or prolonged flight.

Also if rumors are true that the raptors airframe is plumbed to cool down, I imagine they would turn it off during airshows, not only to keep its secrets safe but also to keep the plane at top performance. You know where the pumping power comes from... Wink

http://jmrc.tripod.com/fa/stealth/stealth1.htm

Check out the Popular Science link. Its old but the principles for achieving stealth vs. EM, IR, Visual detection are worth noting.

Forum: F-22A Raptor

We've all see Raptor demos before. But ever seen one in IR?