I'm interested in what you say about the F-117. The fighter has shown to be very useful, but there have been several issues with it's stealth capability. It was possible to spot it if it was flying during the rain, and with ground-based RLS operating on unusually long wavelengths. Also I found this interesting bit on the F-22A. I'm not sure what to make of it, since I'm not very well versed in the area.
WHAT OUR NATION GETS FOR MORE THAN $70 BILLION
What will the $70B Raptor program and an additional $1B per year for maintaining a very small fleet of F–22 Raptors contribute to our national defense? First of all — the raison d’etre for the aircraft disappeared: The cold war has long been over! Secondly, the aircraft’s requirements fell far short of achieving that dream. The promises, the four pillars, need review. Real Stealth is measured against its five signatures — infrared, sound, visual, electronic emissions, and radar signature reduction to enemy fighter radars and enemy ground-based radars.17 The F–22 is the biggest fighter in the sky and is the first to be seen visually. This is anti-stealth. If cruising supersonically, two signatures give it away and identify it—the inescapable infrared signature and its loud supersonic booms. Infrared sensors have come a long way. The US Navy routinely equips its fighters with them and the Russians have good ones for sale. Netted computers can track its sound. Its big powerful radar designed to see the enemy at long distances and despite minimizing detection of its own emissions can be detected by existing high-tech Russian radar detectors. Also, it is physically impossible to design shapes and radar absorptive material to simultaneously defeat low power, high-frequency enemy fighter radars, and high power, low-frequency ground based radars. Unnoticed by all the air superiority advocates is that air superiority is primarily a daytime operation, and stealthy airplanes are stealthy only at night—hence the dark grey stealthy F–117’s name — Nighthawk. The F–22 Raptor is not very stealthy. But, then, stealth is meaningless operating against the small undeveloped nations that we fight — as are air superiority aircraft.
The advocates of stealth have never understood that it isn’t design to stealth that makes aircraft unsensed by the enemy. It is the cost of design to stealth that reduces the operational force to the point that it will seldom be in operation. Proof — we possess only 21 stealthy B–2 bombers instead of the 135 that the fully funded program was to buy!18 Can one win a war against a powerful country with 21 bombers that fly at half the frequency of the B-52 Stratobomber? Of course not. We can only fight small, very weak nations like Somalia, Serbia, Vietnam, Panama, Afghanistan, Iraq, and teeny Grenada — so we do. They fight us asymmetrically — making our expensive preparations for war fruitless. We win these campaigns about half the time. And even after winning, we sometimes lose the war.
Due to its very large 26 percent gain in weight, the Raptor has a very ordinary thrust-to-weight ratio and wing loading, comparable to the F–15C. Hence, its maneuverability, acceleration, and rate of climb are comparable to the performance of the F–15C — for reasons of basic physics.19 Its supersonic cruise potential allowing sufficient fuel reserves for supersonic combat and other requirements, is very low because this radius is heavily dominated by its deficient fuel fraction. Fuel fraction is the fraction of the total aircraft weight that is fuel, measured at take-off.20 To make it look good, advocates compare the Raptor with the worst supercruiser fighter in our military, the F–15C. The F–22 probably doubles the small operational supersonic radius of the F–15C at 1.6 Mach. But so does the 50 year old, diminutive F–104A with the J79–19 engine. The USAF constantly claims that the F–22 has a large supersonic cruise radius, but they lack insight into the subject of efficient supersonic cruise. And never, not even hardly ever, does the USAF quote its real measure—its supersonic radius on a practical supersonic combat mission with standard landing fuel reserves and fuel required for highspeed combat. Supercruise fighters are a legacy that Col. John R. Boyd and I left the USAF.21 22 In summary, The Raptor is not the promised advance in fighter performance and supersonic cruise range. It is somewhat stealthy, but in performance it is similar to an F–15C with advanced avionics; and is merely comparable to the latest Russian aircraft.
The capability of the F–22’s electronic suite unquestionably exceeds that of the F–15C. Both aircraft carry the same weapons and are comparably lethal. However Lockheed made two grievous errors in designing the electronics suite for the F–22. First Error— the F–20 has an “integrated” avionics suite (as opposed to the “federated system” in the F–23), which means all its components are designed to work together in harmony, but generally, only with those components. Hence, modern, better components cannot be merely plugged in to replace most of the old components without a great deal of reprogramming. “Plug-and-Play” replacement is possible with a federated or modular system. Second error — inexplicably, old state-of–the–art computer chips were used in its composition. In short, a major (and until now, unheralded) modification is required to bring its avionics suite into modernity. This hidden major expense and arduous multi-year task will be delayed until the aircraft is committed to full production. Of course, public awareness of this expense couldn’t possibly be allowed to threaten the program.
http://www.pogo.org/m/dp/dp-fa22-Riccioni-03082005.pdf