I’ll look for the link, but it was reported the IR sensors on the F-35 once detected an AA missile test launch from Vandenberg...from 740 miles away.
And tracked it.
IR only.
Of course from that distance it had to flying high.
It can detect other aircraft and target them via IR only. No radar needed. While just about everyone has some IR detection now, this system is reportedly 3-4x more sensitive. And precise.
Moreover, it has a huge database of IR signatures on board so that it can identify what it detects and present only “threats” to the pilot.
This aircraft rarely uses its radar. When it does it’s usually to build the data network to link all other aircraft together as a single entity with a single view of the battle space. Even to control UACVs.
Imagine 4 UACVs attached to every F-35. Stealth units of course.
It’s revolutionary.
I agree. If we want to use it like a rifle with iron sights, we are going to have a very expensive rifle that uses iron sights when alternatives 1/10th the cost will do that just fine.
I know it seems insane to have a helmet that costs $1.5 million dollars, but what that helmet brings is remarkable. The ability to “see” through the plane, and bring all the sensors into play...IR, radar, visible light, target emissions...and display them in a way for one pilot to understand and see, never mind pooling all those resources to all elements scattered over hundreds or thousands of square miles.
It is revolutionary, I agree. Because it is only marginally better or marginally worse in a visual turning dogfight than an F-16 is missing the point entirely.
I could see things like stealth powered gliders with foldable deployable wings carried internally on an F-35, maybe four to a bay, that only require the slightest push to keep them aloft, each equipped with a package to allow them to communicate visual/IR/emission data, and the F-35 flies in undetected and deploys them on a path like a minelayer.
Four of them cover an interlocking air corridor of a thousand miles distance. An airborne picket so to speak. And they just cruise silently in long rectangles for days at a time sending all manner of data, including airborne and ground traffic, communications, emissions, etc back to a single F-35, to an AWACS, or land stations or even individual commanders, squads, or soldiers on the ground.
And so on.