The story of the “secret” ship Sea Shadow, which wanted to become a US sea jewel and ended in a huge fiasco No Comment

Ben Rich, 53, was far from a newcomer to the world of military technology. His service record preceded it. Aside from the little education he had, Rich was one of the best. star engineers He played an important role in the development of the F-117 aircraft from Lockheed Corporation and is considered the “father of airspace technology”. security“(aka insidious) is something to talk about that the US is aiming to evade the surveillance of enemy troops and is still happening today in the middle of 2023.

Rich had nothing to prove anymore. He was respected. He rested. They trusted him so much at Lockheed that in 1975 they gave him the reins of their main secret R&D and development program, Skunk Works. Still, he decided to gamble in 1978. While he was doing the mundane thing as watching a corporate photographer take a failed photo of an F-117, he jumped into the pool after an imaginary idea came to his mind almost by chance.

A good reporter couldn’t take decent pictures no matter how hard he tried. The F-117 was a blur. Of course he put the blame on his Polaroid. Maybe one of the lenses, he thought. For Rich, the key was completely different… different and inspiring: it wasn’t the refraction of optics, but the “hidden” shape and coating of the F-117 Nighthawk fuselage. they made that effect.

A sonar-proof sub?

“They interfered with the camera device used to focus, causing images to appear blurry,” they explain from Lockheed Martin. Rich’s next rationale was to leap into the void: What if the F-117’s stealth technology had been implemented? a submarine… Would she be able to evade enemy sonars in this way?

The topic was interesting enough to be worth a try, so Rich and his team of engineers purchased a small model submarine, equipped it, and put it to the test in a private room. The design may have been a bit rough, but it worked, and by and large: the sonar return was reduced by a factor of three, which was more than promising data that encouraged the company to persevere in its idea. secret submarines.

By design, the diver, which Lockheed says resembles a cigar covered in flat panels, bounced off sonar signals and muffled engine roar and crew sounds. When Rich thought the idea was mature enough and they had done enough work, he gathered all his materials and knocked on the Pentagon’s door.

The problem was that the Navy captain who accompanied him didn’t share his enthusiasm: Such a diver might be quiet, yes, but his design might overshadow him. two or three knots disinterested speed.

The meeting went so badly that the concept of the secret ship appeared to have been touched and sunk. And perhaps that’s what might have happened if Rich hadn’t had a second unexpected idea, this time chatting with a Skunk Works colleague who had just returned from Pearl Harbor in Oahu, Hawaii.

There, he saw the Small Water Area Twin Hull, a catamaran inspired by the ideas of Canadian Frederick G. Creed, according to his partner. But Rich saw something else in it: an ideal basis for reconsidering the idea of ​​the stealth ship. Maybe the submarine thing didn’t go so well, but… and a surface ship Who wanted the same thing: equipping himself with “stealth” technology to circumvent enemy control?

Safe from prying eyes

These were the Cold War years, the years of ongoing struggle between the USA and the USSR, and one of the biggest headaches of the US Navy was the control of the Soviet RORS satellite. Against this backdrop, he took advantage of a meeting with the Defense leadership, who, in theory, should have taken care of the F-117 to withdraw his new offer. This time things went better and the engineer won a DARPA contract that allowed him to explore his idea.

The result is the Sea Shadow, an angular ship with exotic shapes that still looks like something straight out of a science fiction movie. The “insidious” thing was also applied in the broadest sense: in philosophy… and in practice. To keep the project secret, the prototype was assembled in a submersible barge located in Redwood City, California. The works, with a total budget of around 200 million dollars, took 27 months. Some time later, as Popular Science, which revealed the project in 1993, explained, it “officially didn’t exist.”

Showy yes; However unsuccessful. Sea Shadow was not very successful.

The first tests in 1981 were a disappointment. To the surprise of Lockheed’s Ocean Division, which took over the project, and possibly Rich, the awakening was very loud. Too much. So much so that that ship, designed to go undetected, could be detected by sonar and from the air. The cause was soon discovered: the propellers of the engine had been turned upside down.

After this glitch was fixed, the ship was completed in 1984 and completed several tests in 1985 and 1986, but its concept was not fully put together. At least that’s what his story implies. Engineers learned some valuable lessons about periscopes and other Navy ships, but the Sea Shadow never passed the testing phase and was never mass produced.

Fed up with this strange ship, perhaps 50 meters long and 21 m wide, with a draft of 4.4 m and a meager crew capacity of just four – a commander, a helmsman, a sailor and an engineer – the Government, fed up with it in 2006. It went on sale without much success. He had to wait several years until 2012 for Mr. Ship to take over him for $2.5 million and a commitment: I would never sail again.

“Shadow of the Seas” was scrapped and scrapped.

What the emblematic Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk represents in aviation is a bad ending for a ship that aspires to be for the US navy.

Photos: US Navy (Wikipedia) And lochkeed martini

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