"Tarver Engineering" wrote in message ...
"Chad Irby" wrote in message
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In article ,
"Tarver Engineering" wrote:

"Chad Irby" wrote in message
m...
In article ,
(Grantland) wrote:

Do they do without?

Note the complete lack of them on any stealth planes in evidence.
While
adding some aerodynamic advantages, they also blow the stealth
characteristics.

You men like the 8 inchers added to the F-22 wings?

Funny, none of the official photos from the first production batch seem
to have anything like this. Maybe they stuck some on for one or two
flight tests, but they're sure not there on current F-22s.

The wing parts were added to correct the wash across the tail occuring for
the "entire flight envelope". Unless Lockmart has addressed the tail crack
issue in a different manner, the 8 inch wing "reflectors" have to be there.

According to Flight International from about a month ago, this issue
was addressed by switching one of the tail spars from CF to Titanium.
I didn't see any mention of strakes/reflectors. Sounds like the
F/A-18 solution - a bit of a non-starter for an aircraft that is being
sold as a low-observable. The same article stated that the F-22 was
meeting its low-observability goals.

So, unless the air force was all but lying to the reporter, or the
reporter muffed the story(a possibility I certainly won't rule out),
it looks like they did find an alternative solution.