How is the F-22 visible to radar in peacetime?

[Malcolm]

Last week one of the F-22 landed with the weapons bay doors open. Surely that would be a huge increase in radar cross section giving an enemy vital seconds warning ?
Secondly the weapons bay held a Sidewinder type heat seeking missile, how quickly can this type of missile detect and lock on to a target, or is it somehow slaved to a sensor within the F-22. Further more the port side missile will only view a target from that side it will not have a 180* field of view as per a missile hung from an external launch rail. Guess these issues have been worked out but with the F-35 having similar internal weapons bays the problems will be the same.

I think the aircraft's own IR seekers will preprogramme the missile immediately before launch as to where the target is, after the launch the missile will head that way until it aquires the target for itself. I believe Tornado F3s had that ability in it's last software version for AMRAAMs ?

AIUI, F-22 does not have High Offset Bore (HOBS) firing capability - in effect shooting round corners/at targets off the wings. This means that although F-22 can fire the latest generations of AIM9X weapons, it can't use their full capabilities. It requires a software update and a fancy pilot's helmet that Typhoon does have and that may explain why Typhoon supposedly has a superior within visual range / dogfight capability. I've heard several reasons/theories for not upgrading F-22 software, but the most convincing one is that carrying the weapons internally means the IR seeker head can't acquire the target before launch, and IR weapons don't generally have mid course update capability since the time of flight is so short.

BVR weapons like Meteor and AIM-120 are generally radar guided and most modern ones do have mid course update capability, meaning the firing aircraft can update the targeting information in the missile mid flight. That means the missile doesn't have to turn on it's own radar seeker head till it's close to the target, so the target gets next to no warning of the incoming threat. Again mid-course update requires the firing aircraft to have the correct software, and I think that is a quite recent upgrade to Typhoon - can't remember if it's for Meteor of AIM-120 though.

[H.A.Bucken]

I've noticed whenever they're up they don't come up on Donny Radar. And just another observation re. the F-117s; I was in JKH, Mildenhall one day when a pair arrived back from Portugal. Local radar requested their intentions- 'landing independently', something like "22" to the localiser- "21" maintain present heading". "22" cleared to land, check wheels down etc. 22 flared and radar chirped up "21, what's your present position, heading and level"; We could still just see it heading towards Bury St. Edmunds with #1 eyeball!

[Surrey Sam]

I guess the reflector is not fitted to this one below. Explains why Swanwick Mil were struggling to figure out how many jets were heading to Wales this Tuesday just gone.

[POL]

I've noticed whenever they're up they don't come up on Donny Radar

Because they are either not fitted with, or do not turn on, their Mode-S transponder.

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If you work on the basis that in Europe, it's illegal to fly a stealth aircraft in controlled airspace in a way that means it cannot conform to normal air traffic detection and management rules regardless of how the aircraft is physically configured.....

[Andy_99]

Just looking through my photo's from Thursday & notice that some of the F22's don't appear to have the Lens devices attached to make them visible.

In those cases do they have to pair up with another aircraft in order to make themselves visible to other traffic ?

That's over & above transponders being active.

Guess those that have been doing A2A combat with the Typhoons etc. will be the ones with the Lenses missing

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It's not as simple as an F-22 being invisible to all radars the moment it takes off. The wavelengths it's designed to be protected against are the short range fire control radars of weapons systems (traditionally X-band), rather than the longer L-band wavelengths that long range air traffic control radars use. Page 17 of this unclass presentation says it better than me. https://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/fi ... iefing.pdf

The reason stealth aircraft will often carry external radar reflectors is either to annoy countries wanting to test their radars against it as they pass or if they're going to be flying in busy airspace where short range approach radars may lose some of their effectiveness.

[T_J]

The reason stealth aircraft will often carry external radar reflectors is either to annoy countries wanting to test their radars against it as they pass or if they're going to be flying in busy airspace where short range approach radars may lose some of their effectiveness.

I agree. The reflectors were noted on the F-22s deployed to Lithuania. It will be standard practice to deny the Russians radar testing.

Footage of the reflectors in the following video from Lithuania.