Introduction

Not long ago, Canada considered replacing its aging fleet of F-18 Hornets with F-35s. The merits of the F-35 were debated on a number of dimensions. One dimension was stealth. One of the F-35’s selling points was its status as a fifth generation stealth fighter.

In an interview with The Fifth Estate, Pierre Sprey, who was involved in the development of the F-16 Fighting Falcon and the A-10 Thunderbolt II, explained that long-wave radars used in the Battle of Britain could detect every stealth aircraft in the world. Russia never stopped building long-wave, low-frequency radars. They modernized them, deployed them, and are selling them all over the world.

Pierre Sprey’s interview on the Fifth Estate is illuminating, and can be watched here: Fifth Estate Interview on Stealth .

Now, the US and western countries never focused on the development of VHF radars for a number of reasons. America had a monopoly on stealth technology. However, time marches on, and peer adversaries have developed their own fifth generation fighters.

In my last SOFREP article, I elaborated on Sprey’s comments. I tried to give the reader an understanding of the physics underlying the F-35’s vulnerability to long-wave VHF radar. That article is available here Why WW2 Radars Can Still Detect Modern Stealth Aircraft . While one can read the current article on a stand-alone basis, it is recommended that the two articles be considered together.

While long-wave VHF radars can detect stealth aircraft, this does not guarantee that the aircraft can be shot down. Just because you can see it does not mean you can kill it. The advantage of stealth aircraft is the element of surprise. If the enemy has long-wave VHF radar, forget surprise. It’s gone, you’ve lost it. The topic of this article is the second question. How do we shoot down the stealth aircraft once its presence has been detected?

The answer lies in the Kill Chain.