Originally Posted by RustyBattleship

You mean that dark area under water?

Originally Posted by avon1944

The answer is yes, the real question is when! There is far more to the F-22A than stealth. The F-22A is being trained to excel in a world when it no longer has stealth.
The F-22A is going through an upgrade program every three or so years, so the technical advantage it has, it will maintain!

Actually, a fair amount is known about the F-22A. The USAF has to sell the program to Congress and they release information in that effort. Those trying to defeat or stop the F-22 program are also releasing as much information as they can in an effort to accomplish that. To those on the outside (you, me and, the rest of the world) it is just information.
What you don't get is the means to accomplish the task. It is nice to know the amount of thrust the engines produce but, what is the efficiency of the engines. How much thrust per unit of fuel is generated?
One problem Russia has is depending on the West to get the latest in micro-circuits. Yes, getting signal processor circuits from Texas Instruments (TI) is great but, what happens if America, Japan, or Europe cuts off the supply? How much information is available on circuits to be designed three or four years from now? If you have to wait until TI, Intel, Motorola, Sony, etc. announces the new circuits, puts your designs behind. Compared with organizations like the USAF, USN, etc. that have access at an earlier time to this sort of information.
The stealth materials are something that are also in an evolution, some of the materials first used on the F-22 have been improved and that process will continue.
The USS Seawolf and F-22A programs are the extreme high tech no expense spared to get the absolute best technology can provide. The USS Virginia and the F-35 programs are designed to take many of these technologies and discover more inexpensive ways of accomplishing the same task.
To my knowledge, the PAK-FA is not a direct competitor to the F-22. That the direct competitor to the F-22 still has not been started yet. The PAK-FA will have some abilities that will bridge the generation 4.5 and the 5th generation air craft.

Adrian

Originally Posted by Doomarias

Heh, But in the end russians probably can, euros can as well but that plane would make the F 22 look like a used mig21(yeah little exaggeration never hurt anybody) cost wise(but not quality wise). Has Japan actually started on thier own or is that a rumor.

Also when we say stealth it should come with a grade of said ability, lets try to make a best estimate of the gamit of stealth.

hmm eg: b52-b1-b1b-b2

Originally Posted by Super Dude

Yeah i think so because lockheed maybe helping. Shin-Shin is what they named it. ATD-X

Originally Posted by obrescia

F-22 will have a few issues after its stealth is ‘not so good’ say in the future. Helmet sighting will need open bay doors for the seeker heads to ‘see’ out into the world, and it will have seeker-head fields of view blockage from the airframe. Also its thermal sensors in each wing root on YF-22 were deleted on the production aircraft (could be installed?) so may limit ultimate use range of AIM-9 compared to aircraft so equipped.

Originally Posted by bengalraider

if there is one nation on earth that can build a stealth fighter compared to the raptor it is russia, anyhow there are quite a few 5th gen stealth fighter programs in the world a few of them are the indian mca( though the mca is built more in the jsf class), the chinese shenyang j-12 and chengdu j-13, the russian sukhoi PAK-FA ( joint project with india and brazil also possibly the first aircraft to have plasma stealth),the japanese atd-x shinshin, the russian also have the mig MFI 1.44 design that can be reactivated remember one thing on papre the raptor may outclass everything but there are two variables numbers and skill the average cost of a PAK-FA or an j-13 will be 30-60% of a raptor with growing economies the spare money in all the nations associated with these aircraft shall incerase as the wealth of the united states declines so i'm thinking four or five PAK-FA'S for each raptor no matter how stealthy the raptor goes down.

by the way ther are probably going to be three versions of PAK-FA
1- a russian version with russian weapon systems
2- an indian version that shall be much like the MKI having western electronics on a russian platform running indian software, maybe even western missiles india is planning a joint venture with MBDA
3- i don't know what kind the brazilians would want