Carsen Van Camp

The F-35 was designed around a difficult constraint, almost no part of its external geometry can serve only one purpose. Those long curves and aligned edges have to control where radar energy is scattered while still producing a fighter that flies well. Behind that surface, engineers had to fit fuel, landing gear, internal weapons, sensors, cooling systems and an enormous F135 engine. Even the separate Integrated Power Package needs somewhere to exhaust. Stealth doesn't remove any of these compromises. It means their electromagnetic consequences have to be hidden. This is why the F-35 isn't simply an aerodynamic aircraft covered in radar absorbing material. Its shape is part of the stealth system. Electromagnetic modelling predicts how radar energy interacts with that geometry, while cavities, exposed machinery and badly positioned edges can create strong returns. Weapons disappear inside the aircraft, doors close back into the outer shape, and even an access panel becomes part of the problem. Then you actually have to manufacture it. A compound-curved composite skin has to emerge at almost exactly the intended contour and meet the next panel without the joint undoing what the shaping achieved. Multiply that across thousands of fasteners, removable panels, landing-gear doors, weapon bays and nearly half a mile of seams, and something as ordinary as a panel gap becomes part of the aircraft's stealth engineering. And it has to remain that precise after years of flying. Fillers and low-observable coatings help control electromagnetic behaviour around those joints, but aircraft live outside. Rain, dust, salt, fluids and maintenance gradually wear those coatings. Opening a panel can mean restoring the low-observable surface around it before the aircraft flies again. What appears to be one smooth, flowing shell is actually thousands of manufactured pieces, openings and interfaces being made to behave, as closely as possible, like one deliberately designed stealth surface.

IT GETS BETTER, MUCH, MUCH BETTER. A 60m generic wide-body, a 37m narrow-body, a Su-34, a F-15, a F-117, a Su-25, a F-16, a Ka-52, and three Shahed drones. (Look how quiet the F-117 is on the X-band) @mouthofmorrison @Ascii211 @ElectronicsbyJH

Pictures show the total loss of 81-0005, an E-3G “Sentry” Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) Aircraft with the U.S. Air Force’s 552nd Air Control Wing based out of Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma, following yesterday’s Iranian ballistic missile and drone attack on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. The strike appears to have purposefully targeted the most important part of the E-3, that being rear of the aircraft which holds its rotating radar dome, containing several sensitive instruments including antennas for the E-3’s AN/APY-2 Surveillance Radar System.

QB Justin Fields is transferring from Georgia, could be the country’s “most highly coveted transfer,” per @DanWolken

When doodlebob starts naming streets