Stealth technology

[Husar]

According to the designer of the F16 it's useless, uses way too much power and a radar from the 50's can still see them supposedly.

Yeah, that's true, the F-16 is useless and has no stealth technology. Even a radar from the 840s could see it.

Because the local arms developers would throw a fit if the precious blood money went to a dirty foreigner, good thing they have such effective lobbyists. </sardony>

Aren't most arms deals decided by who is willing to pay the higher bribes?
At least European and US military contractors are quite willing to pay bribes if national pride is not a factor in the purchasing country.

What I find impressive is that we could detect a lit-candle orbiting Mars with current equipment, due to how sensitive heat-detection is.

From where, with what and how exactly?
I can also claim that the nerves in my nose are capable of receiving the smell of a ferret farting in Australia but that still doesn't mean that I could tell you its name.

Nice reply from Husar. So basically it's impossible at the moment to fly any kind of manned aircraft over a SAM riddled battlefield or strategic location and expect to get away scott free. So how does the whole air superiority thing work in an actual conflict that includes more than goatherds with shoulder mounted Igla rpgs?

Depends on how good the balance between tracking mechanisms and countermeasures actually is today and a whole lot of other things. Just because stealth planes are not immune there is no reason to think that airplanes in general are useless.
First of all you have to consider other assets such as commando operations and suppression of air defenses in general. Apart from stealth, aircraft can also use electronic countermeasures, the good old chaff and flares and Wild Weasels can be used to supress or destroy enemy anti air assets.

It all depends on who is fighting who, how and where they are fighting and how good their strategies and tactics are. Quite a few strike aircraft can fly through valleys where they don't need stealth to escape radar SAMs unless the valey itself is riddled with air defense assets. However, if we're talking about a modern US vs Russia scenario, consider the nukes. Otherwise think of Libya, they didn't have the most modern russian AA assets but also not the worst and France and Britain didn't use stealth fighters over there although both have had some thoughts put into a reduced RCS, the Rafale more than the Eurofighter AFAIK.