"Denyav" wrote in message
...
'Reduced RCS' rather than stealth. (Of course, emitting is still a
problem for the F-22 if it wants to stay unobtrusive)


Well,if you start experimenting with the definitions you must also mention
two
more of them:

1)Monostatic (backscatterer) RCS.
This is what you are referrring to and this could be reduced very
significantly
by hard body shaping.
Both B2 and F22 (at least as far as frontal threat zone concerned) have
identical and excellent backscaterer RCS values.
There is no way that any conventional bacscatterer radar that positioned
inside of their forward thread zone could possibly detect these two
planes
before its too late.

2)Bi-Static (forwardscatterer) RCS
Totaly different story here,as Germans and Brits discovered 60 years
ago,hard
body shaping significantly reduces the backscatterer,but NOT
forwardscatererers.
On contrary,agressive use of hard body shaping in order to reduce
backscaterers
to absulutely lowest levels actualy increases forwardscaterers.

Thats the reason why the planes with insect size monostatic RCS,B2 and
F22,have
B-52 size Bi-static RCS,which makes them very vulnerable to the detection
using
low power commercial and military emitters.


Newbie Alert
(My knowledge of radars is very limited cos my course covered them in
3hours!)

Assuming the F-22 is radar stealthy etc due to its shape and materials, is
it possible that you'd get a decent radar return from the radome? After
all, the aircraft radar goes out through it, so whats to stop (a very
lucky!) ground or other airborne radar getting through it the other way? Or
are radomes made of mono directional materials?