Re: There really...
'Then compares it to the latest Russian plane, concludes it has a smaller radar footprint from the front making it harder to shoot down'
I'd be highly dubious of any documentary claiming it knows the Radar Cross Section (RCS) of an aircraft, that's normally very hard to find out and it's not something you can work out just by looking at it as the materials involved in the construction play a part. Certainly the claim that the F-35 has an enormous RCS when viewed from the rear sounds dubious as it was designed with 360° stealth in mind, down to the fillets on the exhaust trailing edge. If the Russian aircraft was a Flanker variant its RCS from the front is fairly large due to the fan blades of the engines being visible, if its the PAK-FA then so far they've built 10 and the programme is about 20 years behind schedule, so they can't play the numbers game.
Or in other words be sceptical of comparisons that accept Russian manufacturer's data as fact but that everything possible is wrong with Western aircraft. The documentary wasn't by Carlo Kopp was it?
Biting the hand that feeds IT
