How Stealth Technology Really Works on Modern Airplanes

In the struggle for airborne survival, one of the most important features of a fighter aircraft is the reduced radar cross section or invisibility. In a world where detection is a matter of life and death, stealth is now a must-have for fighters and bombers. Here we will examine how stealth works and how the Air Force uses it to defeat enemies both in the air and on the ground.

Integrated air defense

In the 1960s, countries around the world began investing in integrated air defense. Ground and air radars were linked to command and control systems, which could issue orders to surface-to-air missile batteries and airbases with ready-to-take-off fighters. In Vietnam, the Middle East and Western Europe, this close integration promised to destroy any attacking bomber force that tried to break through.

As a result, attack aircraft use air command and control, electronic warfare, anti-aircraft suppression, etc. to ensure that relatively few aircraft break through the defenses and reach the target. forced to implement new tactics such as All this put many aircraft and their pilots at risk.

Radar was the basis of air defense. This was (and still is) the primary way to detect drones. Radar can detect aircraft at a distance of 100 miles or more and although it cannot tell what type of aircraft is flying, it can tell things like relative size, speed, altitude, and direction; this is enough to organize the anti-aircraft defense of the sector, to form defensive forces to repel an offensive attack.

All this made military planners and aerospace engineers wonder: What if a plane could pass through enemy airspace without being seen on radar? Instead of a dozen or more aircraft attacking a single target, a single aircraft—a bomb-carrying aircraft—can penetrate the enemy’s complex defenses, deliver their ammunition, and fly home.

dawn of secrecy

Radar works by sending streams of radio waves and catching them when they return. Radio waves hitting objects in their path return, alerting defenders that intruders are on their way. Engineers knew that radio waves behaved differently when they hit different surfaces, but no one had previously developed a method to predict exactly how these waves would react.

The implications of figuring out how to build radar-dodge drones were huge. Engineers could design a 50,000-pound aircraft that is as visible to radar as a wasp, meaning it would have to be much closer to the radar system to even be detected. If this reduces an aircraft’s vulnerability to radar detection from 100 to just 20 miles, stealth aircraft can carefully advance through radar systems undetected, and the enemy wouldn’t be wise.

In the 1960s, Soviet physicist Petro Ufimtsev developed a model to predict how electromagnetic waves, such as radar waves, would scatter when they hit 2D and 3D surfaces. Despite the fact that his work was published in the USSR, it apparently was never intended for practical application. Until the defense contractor Lockheed realized this and translated his work into English; Ufimtsev’s work became the basis of modern privacy technologies.

Lockheed took full advantage of Ufimtsev’s work as he confirmed that a special formation could reduce an aircraft’s radar signature. The major surfaces of the aircraft—nose, fuselage, wings, ailerons, flaps, cockpit canopy, etc.—can be analyzed and then expressed as what is known as a “radar section.” Aircraft with large flat surfaces, such as the fuselage of the B-52 bomber, or vertical stabilizers, such as the F-111 tactical bomber, reflected large amounts of radar energy. External storage devices such as bombs, missiles, and fuel tanks also reflected energy. Attention to detail was required: holes could actually focus radar energy to provide a sharper return, while rivets, gaps or even the slightest ridge could reflect energy.

The first aircraft specifically designed for privacy priority was Have Blue. Built by Lockheed Martin, it was unlike any other airplane ever made. Unlike most aircraft with curved, vertical surfaces and large air intakes, the Have Blue was cut like a diamond with angular surfaces and small inlets. In Blue, the two vertical stabilizers were not sticking straight, but instead angled towards each other so that they would not reflect radar energy.

Have Blue was a technology demonstrator. Four years later, the first stealth fighter, the F-117A Nighthawk, was produced, and unlike the Have Blue, the F-117A was designed for warfare. It was similar to the Have Blue, but larger, and was designed to carry two 2,000-pound laser-guided bombs internally. Unlike the Have Blue, it featured two vertical dovetail stabilizers pointing outward from a central point along the aircraft’s keel.

The US Air Force flew 59 F-117A aircraft in great secrecy from the Tonopah Range, a secret aircraft test site in the Nevada desert. These 59 jets were America’s best in the business, 59 jets could penetrate enemy airspace and hit ground targets with high precision. There was nothing like them anywhere in the world.

The F-117A squadron was introduced to the world in 1988, the same year the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber was introduced. The bat-wing boomerang shape of the B-2 completely eliminated the vertical stabilizers, resulting in an even smaller radar cross section. Later stealth jets, including the F-22 Raptor fighter, the F-35 Lightning II attacker, and the B-21 Raider strategic bomber, focused on making stealth more affordable and easier to maintain.

Once it became clear that stealth was suitable for attack aircraft, the next step was to create stealth fighters. Stealth fighter jets such as the F-22 can hide undetected at high altitudes and ambush other aircraft. Today, the stealth design of the aircraft is considered a key part of what makes the aircraft a fifth-generation fighter, and sixth-generation designs envisioned in the United States, Japan, Britain and elsewhere clearly show that stealth aircraft is here. to stay.

However, stealth is not a surprising solution to the problem of breaking through enemy air defenses or destroying enemy fighters and bombers from the sky. Like everything else in the world of military operations, secrecy involves a constant arms race with caution and countermeasures, and technological advances are a real possibility. quantum radarmay one day override it. It’s important to think of stealth as one tool in a toolbox that modern aircraft can use, including multi-purpose radars, electronic warfare, scramjet weapons, artificial intelligence, offensive/defense lasers, and more.

Invisibility was a major obstacle in the post-war realm of air warfare, shifting the balance of power from the defender to the attacker. However, its technological complexity and staggering cost make it available to a select few. Some new technology will one day break privacy itself, making it less effective or completely obsolete. What the Air Force deems necessary today may be useless tomorrow.