Zephyr Net

Eurofighter may have tricks up its sleave that the Rafale doesn't have, but what about SH vs. Eurofighter? From the front I believe the Eurofighter has a smaller area, and IIRC its engine fan blades are hidden whereas the Super Hornets are very exposed. From what I know about stealth those are some of the most important factors in frontal RCS?

Zephyr

frontal area IS important but dont fall into that trap, remember the B-2 has a wicked HUGE frontal area.
The SH is almost FULLY planform aligned(except for the LERXs), even the intakes, not so for EuroPhoon. All the major doors and panels on SH have the sawtooth edges (also planform aligned) I dont recall if EuroPhoon has any sawtooth edges (it may have, I just dont recall noticing them). Even the Hornet has intakes with the "S"" curve to help hide them from RADAR, and the SH DOES INDEED have composit "fan blockers" in front of the compressors in addition to those curves(the blockers have been changed several times to get them optimized to the SH and threats).

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Fighting for justice with brains of steel

Let your anger be like the monkey which hides inside the piniata.

wherever you got the idea the SH fan blades were exposed to radar reflection is plain wrong...

The SH has a radar absorbent design to its intakes(it uses baffles to trap the radar signature and does not allow a bounce back). It is one of the main reason the intakes were redesigned from the C/D hornet (which has exposed fan blades). the radar cross section ofthe SH is less then that of a block 52 F-16C....

umm... yeah I believe I just said that lol, you need more rest man

_________________
Fighting for justice with brains of steel

Let your anger be like the monkey which hides inside the piniata.

****** Yawn ******

What exactly is a baffle? Do you have pictures of these?

Zephyr

the article I read was during the SH roll-out, Av-Week sort of went over it with a fine tooth comb and commented about the parts reductions vs Hornet and everything else they had learned. They stated the "fan blockers" were very much like a first stage compressor fan but did not rotate and were made of composite materials, and that they had been changed several times and were continuing to be tweaked as the program progressed.

_________________
Fighting for justice with brains of steel

Let your anger be like the monkey which hides inside the piniata.