DIA on China's new fighter

On Nov 19, 9:07*pm, PaPa Peng wrote:
The officer said that significantly reducing the new aircraft's radar
cross-section will require more than stealth outer coatings. New
integrated design and shaping as well as coatings are needed, the
officer was quoted as saying in the magazine's Nov. 13 article on the
new Chinese jet.

Been away from this group for some time. *Question. *Dogfighting has
no place in modern aerial combat. * Presumably long before the enemy
comes within visual range onboard sensors would have decteted the
opponent and high performance guided missiles fired. *No one gets near
enough to fire his guns. *So what is the advantage in super
maneuverability in the design specs of the plane? *In all the videos I
have seen where the pilot tries to demonstrate the superior
performance of his aircraft nothing the pilot had done could possibly
escape a locked-on missile.

The second question is on stealth. *Again you don't want to come
within shooting range of the enemy. *Dive bombing a well defenced
target is sucidal. *Against defenseless third world countries any old
ordinary plane can do the job. So against a well defended target one
tries to launch the munition from as far away as possible. *Once the
munition is launched the plane reveals it location and has to scramble
out of the way. *Its pointless to hang around anyway since the mission
is already (launch the munition) and you don't want to risk a
multimillion dollar plane and the pilot.

Therefore what critical advantages do stealth and high maneuverablity
confer to 5th generation aircraft to justify the cost, long
development times and technical complexity.

The whole "kill'em before they can reach" sounds really interesting in
theory and probably will eventually work in practice. But I just don't
think it's gonna be an smooth ride just like gun and powder didn't
replace sword and spear overnight, we all know, at the initial stage,
rudimentary musket was no match for arrow and bow. Anyway, the bottom
line is this theory has never really been seriously tested in real
combat. So before jumping with your two feet into it, it'd be prudent
to hedge your bet by maintaining skills proven to be needed.