Stealth Technology Explained!

Nice discussion, guys, but all of this has been bypassed just on what we know. The new gen of UAVs, some the size of an insect will bypass all attempts to detect the craft as a foreign observer or agent.

They will be too small (and stealthy) to detect by heat, disturbance of the air flow, shadow on the ground, or electromagnetic signature.

Badge01,

What you are talking about is the new Micro-UAV's. there is only one problem with these crafts: they are really only useable for reconnassance missions. A UAV the size of an insect is much too small to deliver weapons against air, land or sea targets. Therefore the mico UAV will never fill these missions.

As long as we use aircraft to fight the enemy, stealth will always be needed in air warfare!

Tim

reply to post by ghost


Ok, speaking of Stealth I have a question.

If stealth can make an aircraft look to be size of bird on radar, why can't a radars just be reprogrammed to look for bird size objects moving a 500 plus miles per hour?

reply to post by ebe51

If stealth can make an aircraft look to be size of bird on radar, why can't a radars just be reprogrammed to look for bird size objects moving a 500 plus miles per hour?

LOL!

That’s a great one, especially given that modern radars are multi-band phased arrays, with resolutions so high that they can instantly give 3D models of the object they are scanning, not to mention the age old ability of radars to determine the exact type of aircraft by comparing the return to the library data-base.

The answer is, because then the very concept of “stealth” would have to be questioned, redefined and repackaged, in order to create a new reason for justifying the TRILLIONS of dollars pored into it.

Back in the 1977, amphibious SA-8 GECKO / 9K33M3 Osa-AKM was able to defend it self from free falling/guided bombs and various missiles.

Stating that tracking stealth is possible is kind of like announcing that Coca-Cola has so much phosphorous in it, that it’s literally digesting your stomach when you drink it, so naturally such things are not to be talked about, since so much money is involved.


[edit on 16-2-2008 by iskander]

I'm a little surprised by the thread, but didn't read every page. AFAIK stealth technology is a misnomer, this and the transonic performance emphasis placed by the DoD called by Kelly Johnson the greatest mistake the USAF has ever made (specific context was in relation to the cancellation of the YF-17A development base for new generation high performance fighters back in the day).

Stealth was certainly part of the marketing of Raptor/JSF, etc. but I don't think any military has ever taken the concept very seriously (though it is indeed politicians who approve purchasing). Stealth is like a magic trick, it's based on illusion and lasts only until you've seen the method used. I read in one publication or another, in Iraq a civilian technician happened to notice he could track the F-117 using mobile phone coverage gaps. Now a simple software system could be employed using the Su-27/Su-30 remote datalink system to increase the amount of receivers a launch aircraft has available, scavenging as much of the signal as possible via a good spread of the flight formation. But this is academic.

As far as I know again (I'm purely an armchair enthusiast and no expert), the real benefit of stealth is high survivability, that is that it reduces the available lock a weapon seeker head can get, proportionate to the "stealth" elements being deployed (which would include I'm sure certain operational doctrine/guidelines).

This minimalises the rather extreme advantage of "fire and forget" technologies and returns aerial combat to the aircraft controlled category. Probably a little crew judgement and tactics too.

I was under the impression the current purpose of "stealth technology" was not low-observability per se, but returning crews to base, and improving survivability in the event of an encounter, by reducing the effectiveness of modern seeker warheads.

reply to post by Vanir


It can be stealth, but not Low-observable?

I thought the whole point of low-observability was to increase survivability.

Shattered OUT...

reply to post by ShatteredSkies


Of course it is, but low-observability is far more sustainable when regarding the more limited technologies of second echelon field defences or relatively limited missile seeker-heads. Low observability doesn't mean Wonder Woman's invisible plane. In all seriousness the greatest benefit of the technology is a more difficult missile lock when everybody already clearly knows you're there.

It's not about detecting aircraft with "stealth," which is easy. It's about a missile hitting one, which isn't necessarily so easy. Very different things.

[edit on 13-4-2008 by Vanir]

Yeah that doesn't really explain it.

I was always under the impression that "Low-observability" was merely a parameter.

Shattered OUT...

Hey i'm doing a Senior Exit project on why the F-22 should replace the F-15. Just to say it, i really don't care wether it does or does not, i'm just doing it because it's an arguable topic.

Basically, RAM, the design, and other technologies add to the stealthiness of the Raptor, and stealth is one of my main points in my paper.

As I read through i noticed you discuss the continuous curvature on the nose and the wing of the F-22, but how does a continuous curvature reduce radar detection? Does the clutter appear as just "noise" to the reciever?

Also, I read that the consistent slopes of the edges of the wings reduce radar detection. How does this work as well? It's hard to explain what I am asking but just look at the picture on this page and you will see:

f-22raptor.com...

-Maverick

Large flat planes (not airplanes) are huge radar reflectors. A curved or angled surface tends to scatter the beam and not bounce it back to the antenna. That's why the F-117 was all angles. The beam would hit it, and there was no telling where it would go. By having curves and angles you are helping to scatter the beam, so the entire beam doesn't go back to the antenna it came from.

Do we know the creator of the stealth aircraft?

Maybe a name?

I am only asking because he/she could of made or be in the making of something realy special!

reply to post by CoNsPiRaCy PhReAk


It really wasn't any one individual person.

It's hard to pin-point exactly where stealth got started. The algorithms used to produce the proper angles and materials used came from scientists and mathematicians from the 1850's and on through the 20th century.

But stealth only really came into fruition when the British began deploying basic rudimentary RADAR systems during WWII. So for the birth of Stealth, I'd say start with German scientists during WWII.

I would suppose that if there was any one man responsible for stealth, he's long dead.

Shattered OUT...

reply to post by CoNsPiRaCy PhReAk


If you would like to assign credit to a single person who is responsible for the development of stealth technology, I would nominate Pyotr Yakovlevich Ufimtsev. He is the physicist who created the original algorithms and computer programs that could reliably predict radar returns from various surface shapes. These algorithms were instrumental in the ability of the US aircraft industry to develop test ranges where potential stealth platforms could be reliably analyzed for RCS.

Did you ever want to try your hand at making your own composite materials in order to maybe later in your life get a career in the stealth industry? Where besides the internet could you go looking up the materials that it takes and or standards that are required to do just this?

How about the Boy Scouts of America?

You're probably scratching your heading wondering just how this could possibly help you along with the exception of the skills to organize yourself along with First Aid when you stick that pcoketknife through your leg while trying to slice through sheetmetal or fiberglass sheets, huh?

Try a Merit Badge in Composite Materials on for size. Too old for the Boy Scouts of America? Too bad, so sad.

Here's a few interesting websites in case you want to go that approach :

How Stuff Works : Stealth

How Stuff Works : Stealth Technology



[edit on 18-5-2008 by SpartanKingLeonidas]

Radar Elusive Tactical Stores Dispensers (RETSD)

It works, maybe like an E/A-18 Growler????

What i know is, the radar is a form of electro magnetic (EM), microwaves precisely. Radio is an EM, microwaves is an EM, Infrared is an EM, visible light or colors that we could see are also EM, ultraviolet is an EM, X-ray is an EM, and the last, the Gamma Ray is also an EM.

EM is actually ´photon´ or electron that spilled out of an atom.

An atom, consists of 8 layers of electron (not eight electron, but eight layers).

When an atom is not fully filled by electrons, another atom that has more electrons always try to share its electron until they are balance each others.

If an electron does not find a place, they will get out of the community and try to find any place, that´s why lightning is happen. They balance each others and the rest-home-less get down to earth.

Another example is global warming, sun radiates UV, visible light, and heat (IR) to earth and then trapped.

The same principle applied to radar.

So, in order to reduce the radar, RAM is used. RAM as the earth, and the radar as the sunlight. However, the RAM is trap the radar inside and at a time, all of the atom inside it will balanced each others, then, it cannot trap any photon anymore. That´s why a stealth aircraft needs special maintenance.

The plasma also works with at the same attitude. The plasma has great capacity, more than RAM, to reduce radar, and when all the atoms balanced each others, they emit electron outside.

Plasma is the material that most difficult to be controlled, but since now there already plasma screen technology, we could put it under the skin layer of the aircraft, and incoming radar could be trapped inside and taken along. This technology was used in Su-35 radar. Where, it could be reformed as heat and then emitted together with jet-burst from the engine, it could be driven back to radar antenna to be use as active radar, or it could be used to refill the batteries, etc.


Well, this is no professional post, this is just a short-logic that i used according to my knowledge.

i hope it helps

[edit on 04/23/2008 by Eastpolar Commander]

[edit on 04/23/2008 by Eastpolar Commander]

Hum, a lot of people posting to cross purposes here and using different, interchangeable terminology to describe a number of concepts.
Before I get slated, I'd just like to say, that I'm no great physicist, nor any sort of expert on stealth technologies.
However, to hopefully clarify a few things.....As I understand them.
Stealth is a popular term, covering a number of low observability technologies. Not including more exotic, active or speculative technologies, stealth is a mixture of good design and clever use of materials.
Radar uses pulses of radio waves reflected from the target object to be able to judge the distance and direction of the object.
Obviously, larger objects tend to reflect more radio energy than smaller, also some materials will reflect more energy than others (in the way a mirror reflects more light than a lump of coal), in addition to this, the aspect (the way it faces) of the object will vary the amount and direction of reflected energy. Lastly, radio waves do not reflect well from objects smaller than their own wavelength. All these factors are considered in the design of stealth aircraft.
An underlying assumption that also goes into design, is that any radar transceivers will be on or near the same plane as the aircraft, therefore large vertical surfaces on aircraft (such as the tail) are either removed or canted at an angle to reduce the 'viewable area' and to avoid reflecting energy directly back. Having faceted / curved surfaces on the aircraft minimises the chance of there being any 'spikes' of reflected radio energy appear to the receiver when the aircraft has a particular orientation to the transmitter.
Some composite materials, are transparent to radio waves, this is obvious from the fiberglass housings that protect many radar transceivers. I understand RAM (Radar Absorbent Materials) function by using composites that are radio transparent / translucent, and embedding a matrix of metallic elements 'tuned' to the wavelengths of the radar one expects to encounter. These metallic elements, because they are 'tuned', then act to absorb the incoming energy and to re-emit it either at a different frequency or as heat, which is essentially yet another electromagnetic frequency in this case.
There is no voodoo as I understand it, no exotic or extraterrestrial solutions, just a solid appliance of physics, some careful consideration, and a lot of hard work and computing time.

Great topic! This definitely explains a lot for people that didn't understand it to begin with. It also eliminates a lot of the myth surrounding stealths. I do believe one day someone will invent an aircraft that is, for all intents and purposes "invisible".