Is it not sad that modern stealth fighters all look the same?
From the F22/35, to the Russian SU57 and the Chinese J-20, they all look like they were made by the same person. At least the Chinese added some canards.
Even the successor of the B2 bomber, just looks like a smaller version of its parent.
Gone are the days where fighter aircraft could look wildly different, unique designs and visual diversity sacrificed at the altar of the physics of stealth.
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Those are just the ones that you can see.
~The real cool ones are invisible. Else they would not be a stealth plane.
Back on topic . Yes I agree we should have had a non-warp Delta Flyer shuttle by now.
Since two of them are copies of the US design . . . what do you think ??
Yes, it’s sad.
It’s also sad that almost all US cars have looked like melted tennis shoes since some time in the 1990s. Often times, I can’t see a difference between several supposedly-different car brands and manufacturers. They’re all ugly melted tennis shoes. Or obnoxious-looking trucks with smaller and smaller truck beds. And they’re all rising annoying high, as if yeast was added to their designs, or the CAD designer had their vertical aspect ration out of proportion.
They are the intersections of optimizations between aerodynamics and RF stealth. Change the requirements and the shapes will change. As you can see, supersonic stealth fighters look a lot different from subsonic stealth bombers.
I agree with @RocketGuy. Given a set of design and performance requirements and available materials the end result will look similar no matter who designs it.
(Of course there is copying but theoretically, the results should look similar.
I have often wondered what passengers would look like if they were totally optimized for fuel economy and emissions.
It’s all about having to evade radar. That’s what gives them that “stealth.”
Well, realize that the J20 contains alot of elements that were straight up stolen from the US stealth programs via espionage, AND they bought an Su-57 and copied from it as well. The Chinese deny this of course, but the similarities are huge. We should also point out that it’s AT BEST unclear if the Su-57 should be considered a stealth fighter and the J20 is only stealthy from the front.
But it’s also the case that shape affects radar return. So there is a certain form-follows-function ethic here. It’s why the B21 looks so much like the B2.
No, I don’t find it to be so.
It’s nice when someone does the optimization for you, then you can just copy. Doesn’t mean there are no other optimal points if you change some of the requirements.
Have you noticed the autos manufactures ever since about the 80’s? All these average cars look about the same anymore, I can’t tell a Honda from a Ford from a Hyundai or a Toyota etc. Computer generated junk. Why should fighter jets be any different?
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