STEALTH

CHAPTER 1

1.1 PREFACE

Stealth

technology also

termed LO

technology (low

observable

technology) is a sub-discipline of military tactics and passive electronic countermeasures, which cover a range of techniques used with

personnel, aircraft, ships, submarines, and missiles, to make them less visible (ideally invisible) to radar, infrared, sonar and other detection methods. Development in the United States occurred in 1958, where earlier attempts in preventing radar tracking of its U-2 spy planes during the Cold War by the Soviet Union had been unsuccessful. Designers turned to develop a particular shape for planes that tended to reduce detection, by redirecting electromagnetic waves from radars. Radar-absorbent

material was also tested and made to reduce or block radar signals that reflect off from the surface of planes. Such changes to shape and surface composition form stealth technology as currently used on the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit "Stealth Bomber". The concept of stealth is to operate or hide without giving enemy forces any indications as to the presence of friendly forces. This concept was first explored through camouflage by blending into the background visual clutter. As the potency of detection and interception technologies (radar, IRST, surface-to-air missiles etc.)

have increased over time, so too has the extent to which the design and operation of military personnel and vehicles have been affected in response. Some military uniforms are treated with chemicals to reduce their infrared signature. A modern "stealth" vehicle will generally have been designed from the outset to have reduced or controlled signature. Varying degrees of stealth can be achieved. The exact level and nature of stealth embodied in a particular design is determined by the prediction of likely threat capabilities.

1.2 HISTORY

In England, irregular units of gamekeepers in the 17th century were the first to adopt drab colours (common in the 16th century Irish units) as a form of camouflage, following examples from the continent. Yehudi lights were successfully employed in World War II by RAF Shorts Sunderland aircraft in attacks on U-boats. In 1945 a Grumman

Avenger with Yehudi lights got within 3,000 yards (2,700 m) of a ship before being sighted. This ability was rendered obsolete by the radar of the time. The U-boat U-480 may have been the first stealth submarine. It featured a rubber coating, one layer of which contained circular air pockets to defeat ASDIC sonar. One of the earliest stealth aircraft seems to have been the Horten Ho 229 flying wing. It included carbon powder in the glue to absorb radio waves. Some prototypes were built, but it was never used in action. During the 1950s, the Avro Vulcan, a British bomber, had a remarkably small appearance on radar despite its large size, and occasionally disappeared from radar screens entirely. In 1958, the CIA requested funding for a reconnaissance aircraft, to replace U-2 spy planes in which Lockheed secured contractual rights to produce the aircraft."Kelly" Johnson and his team at Lockheed's Skunk Works were assigned to produce the A-12 or OXCART the first of the former top secret classified Blackbird series which operated at high altitude of 70,000 to 80,000 ft and speed of Mach 3.2 to avoid radar detection.

Radar absorbent material had already been introduced on U-2 spy planes, and various plane shapes had been developed in earlier prototypes named A1 to A11 to reduce its detection from radar. Later in 1964, using prior models, an optimal plane shape taking into account compactness was developed where another "Blackbird", the SR-71, was produced, surpassing prior models in both altitude of 90,000 ft and speed

of Mach 3.3.The Lockheed SR-71 included a number of stealthy features, notably its canted vertical stabilizers, the use of composite materials in key locations, and the overall finish in radar absorbing paint. During 1970s, the U.S. Department of Defence then launched a project called Have Blue to develop a stealth fighter. Bidding between both Lockheed and Northrop for the tender was fierce to secure the multi-billion dollar contract. Lockheed incorporated in its program paper written by a Soviet/Russian physicist Pyotr Ufimtsev in 1962 titled Method of Edge Waves in the Physical Theory of Diffraction, Soviet Radio, Moscow, 1962. In1971 this book was translated into English with the same title by U.S. Air Force, Foreign Technology Division (National Air Intelligence Center ), Wright-Patterson AFB, OH, 1971. Technical Report AD 733203, Defense Technical Information Center of USA, Cameron Station, Alexandria, VA, 22304-6145, USA. This theory played a critical role in the design of American stealth-aircraft F-117 and B-2.The paper was able to find whether a plane's shape design would minimise its detection by radar or its radar cross-section (RCS) using a series of equations could be used to evaluate the radar cross section of any shape. Lockheed used it to design a shape they called the Hopeless Diamond, securing contractual rights to mass produce the F-117 Nighthawk.

The F-117 project began with a model called "The Hopeless Diamond" (a wordplay on the Hope Diamond) in 1975 due to its bizarre appearance. In 1977 Lockheed produced two 60% scale models under the Have Blue contract. The Have Blue program was a stealth technology demonstrator that lasted from 1976 to 1979. The success of Have Blue lead the Air Force to create the Senior Trend program which developed the F-117.

1.3 AIM OF STEALTH TECHNOLOGY

The idea is for the radar antenna to send out a burst of radio energy, which is then reflected back by any object it happens to incounter. The radar antenna measures the time it takes for the reflection to arrive, and with that information it can tell how far the object is. The metal body of airplane is very good at reflecting radar signals and this makes it easy to find and locate an airplane. The goal of stealth technology is to make an airplane invisible to radar. There are to different ways to create invisibility. The airplane can be made so that any radar signal it reflects can be reflected away from the radar equipment. The airplane can be covered in materials that absorb radar signals. The goal of stealth technology is to bounce so less power back to the radar so that the target is nearly impossible to detect.

CHAPTER 2

2.1 DETECTION TECHNIQUES

Radar is a system that allows the location, speed and direction of a vehicle to be tracked. The word RADAR stands for RADIO DETECTION AND RANGING since the device uses radio waves to detect targets. Radar works by sending out pulses of these electromagnetic waves and listening of echoes bounced back by targets of interest.

Even though radar may transmit megawatts of power in single pulse, only a tiny fraction of power is bounced back to be received by the transmitting antenna. The amount of power returned from the target to the transmitting radar depends on four major factors1- The power transmitted in the direction of the target. 2- The amount of power that impacts the target and is reflected back in the direction of the radar. 3- The amount of reflected power that is intercepted by the radar antenna. 4- The length of time in which the radar is pointed at the target.

Fig 1: Concept of pulsed radar

Fig 2: Factors that determine the energy returned by the target

2.2 RADAR CROSS SECTION

A term used to describe the relationship between the above variables is power density, sometimes also called power flux. The power transmitted by a radar is dissipated the further it travels because it is spread over an increasingly larger area. The area over which the power is spread is proportional to the square of the distance, or range (R), from the transmitting radar. The amount of power spread over a given area is called

is called power density, and this quantity decreases by the square of the range. The power density of the transmitted radar at the range of the target has a special name called the incident power density (P incident). Once the radar power reaches the target, some portion of that power will be reflected back to the source. However, this reflected power also dissipates and spreads out as it echoes back to the radar receiver. Since the power density has been already reduced by a factor of 1/R by the time it reaches the target and is again reduced by 1/R on the return trip, the final power density of the energy received by the radar is proportional to 1/R. The ability of radar to detect the target depends on whether the amount of power returned is large enough to be differentiated from internal noise, ground clutter, background radiation, and other sources of interference. The amount of power that is reflected back to the radar depends largely on a quantity called the radar cross section (RCS). Although RCS is technically an area and typically expressed in square meters (m), it is helpful to break the term apart to better understand what it means. Radar cross section is usually represented by the greek letter (sigma), and the quantity depends in three factors1- Geometric Cross section-The geometric cross section refers to the area the target presents to the radar, or its projected area. This area will vary depending on the angle or aspect, the target presents to the radar. In other words, the target will probably present the smallest projected area to radar if it is flying directly towards the radar and is viewed head-on. A view from the side, top or underneath will present a much larger projected area. The geometric cross section (A)

determines that how much power is transmitted by the radar is the intercept by the target ( the following relationship: ) according to

) 2- Reflectivity- Reflectivity refers to the fraction of the intercept power that is reflected by the target regardless of the direction. Radar power does not necessarily reflect from all parts of an aircraft, and some components produce stronger radar reflections than others. In addition, some radar power is usually absorbed by the target . This absorption is specially true of aircraft coated with special substances called Radar Absorbent Materials (RAM) or those using internal reflectors called Radar Absorbent Structures (RAS) that trap incoming radar waves. Regardless, the power that is absorbed by the target. Reflectivity is defined as the ratio of the power scattered by the target ( ( ). ) to the power intercepted by the target

Reflectivity=

3- Directivity- Directivity refers to reflectivity but refers to the power scattered back in the direction of the transmitting radar. The power that is reflected towards the radar is called the backscattered power

). Radar energy is not reflected evenly, but directivity

is defined as the ratio of the power that is backscattered in the direction of the radar to the power that would have been scattered in the direction if the scattering were in fact uniform in all directions. If the power were to scatter equally, it would from a sphere expanding uniformly in all directions from the target. This type of behaviour is called isotropic expansion. Isotropic power ( ) is defined as

the power that is scattered in a perfect sphere over a unit solid angle of that sphere, as shown in following equation-

Directivity=

It is mentioned that the power reflected by the target is much stronger in some directions than in others. As a result, that reflected power will me much greater or much smaller than the isotropic power depending on how the target is oriented to the transmitting radar. The directivity, therefore will me much greater than 1 when the target returns a strong backscatter in the direction to the radar and much less than 1 when the backscatter is small.

These three factors can be combined to determine the complete radar cross section () of the target-

RCS= = Geometric Cross Section Reflectivity Directivity

RCS = = A

( )

Simplifying that expression yields the following relationship for radar cross section

= 4

The importance of radar cross section can best be understood by looking at an equation relation the RCS of the target to the energy received by the radar.

S
WhereS= Signal energy received by the radar Pavg= average power transmitted by the radar G= gain of radar antenna

 = radar cross section of the target Ac= effective area of the radar antenna , or aperture efficiency tot = time the radar antenna is pointed at the target

The following graph gives some understanding of just how little radar power is typically reflected back from the target and received by the radar. In this case, the target presents the same aspect to the radar ranges from 1 to 50 miles. At the range of 59 miles, the relative power received by the radar is only 0.00000016, or 1.6 % of the strength at one mile. This

diagram graphically illustrates how significant the effect of energy dissipation is with distance, and how sensitive radars must be to detect targets even at short ranges.

Fig 3: Reduction in the strength of the target echoes with range

Furthermore, every radar has a minimum signal energy that it can detect, a quantity called maximum range ( . The minimum signal energy determines the ) at which a given radar can detect a given target.

The above equation is popularly known as radar range equation. According to this relationship, reducing the radar cross section of a vehicle to of

its original value will reduce the maximum range at which the target can be detected by nearly 44%! While that reduction alone is significant, even greater reduction in RCS are possible.

CHAPTER 3

3.1 STEALTH TECHNIQUES

3.1.1 VISUAL STEALTH

Low visibility is desirable for all military aircraft and is essential for stealth aircraft. It is achieved by colouring the aircraft so that it tends to blend in with its environment. For instance, reconnaissance planes designed to operate at very high altitudes, where the sky is black, are painted black. (Black is also a low visibility colour at night, at any altitude.) Conventional daytime fighter aircraft are painted a shade of blue known as "airsuperiority blue-gray," to blend in with the sky. Stealth aircraft are flown at night for maximum visual stealth, and so are painted black or dark gray. Chameleon or "smart skin" technology that would enable an aircraft to change its appearance to mimic its background is being researched. Furthermore, glint (bright reflections from cockpit glass or other smooth surfaces) must be minimized for visual stealth; this is accomplished using special coatings.

The original approach to making a combat aircraft hard to spot is still used today in most military hardware: camouflage. Even some of the very first combat aircraft, flown during the first World War, were painted in tones that mimicked the terrain under them. This usually meant blobs of black,

white, and shades of brown, green, and/or blue. The underside of the fuselage, wings, and tail, however, were painted in tones that mimicked the sky: light blue, light grey, or white. The thought is that, when seen from above, the aircraft would be camouflaged into the terrain around it, and when seen from below, it would look like a part of the sky. The same idea has evolved its way onto many birds, fish, and marine mammals: Their backs/tops are dark grey, making them hard to pick out when seen from above (under them being the dark ocean), and their bellies/bottoms are white, making them hard to pick out when picked from below (above them being the sun and the bright sky). During the first World War, German designers modified some Fokker fighters and at least one larger bomber aircraft by covering them with skins made of Cellon, a mostly-transparent material. However, it was opaque when looked at from an angle, and it glinted in the sun, so these first attempts at making an invisible aircraft failed. During the second World War, an interesting development was made towards making aircraft even harder to pick out. This development was kept secret until the 1980s, believe it or not. Remember that the idea of camouflage is not to make the airplane invisible, but to make it look like its surroundings. During the day, low-altitude aircraft usually look darker than their surroundings, unless they are painted in very light colors. Eventually almost all low-altitude combat aircraft came to be painted in light colors, but during World War 2 this still seemed like a bad idea (you have to admit its counter-intuitive) although the Japanese and the British did paint some aircraft in light colours. So the US Navy tackled the question of how to make their aircraft not look dark against the sky, without painting them

almost white. Particularly, torpedo-bombers going after German U-boats would often be spotted before getting close enough to drop their torpedoes, usually from about 12 miles away. The U-boats would then have time to dive out of range before they could be hit. The navy took a TBM3D Avenger and fitted lights along the engine cowling and wings. These lights could illuminate the airplane with adjustable intensity. After many experiments, the proper lighting could keep the TBM from being spotted until it was only 2 miles away! A B-24 Liberator, a large 4-engine bomber, was then similarly modified, and delivered similar results. This was called Project Yehudi. This concept was not incorporated into production aircraft, since aircraft radar was being developed that allowed these aircraft to locate and attack their targets from beyond visual range. The idea was revived during the Vietnam war when F-4 Phantoms (among the largest fighters of the time) kept getting spotted from long distances. Under Project Compass Ghost, an F-4 painted in light blue tones and fitted with lights saw its detection range reduced by 10-30 percent not bad, but not the 85% achieved with the TBM in World War 2. (In modern times, it has been observed that jets are often sighted first by the darkness in their shadowy jet intakes. The placement of lights in the jet intakes has been proposed, but as far as I know, painting the inside of the intake ducts white is the only solution to this problem that has actually been used). But back to the question of what colours to paint combat aircraft. As jets became common in the late 1940s and early 1950s, camouflage became of extremely limited use: these aircraft flew so high that the sky, clouds, and haze dominated their surroundings, not vegetation or ocean or desert terrain.

The first answer was to not paint these jets at all, but to finish their metallic skin to as to reflect the colours around them. This may sound like a good idea until you realize that they also reflected the sun a good deal of the time. As convex mirrors and M.C. Escher lithographs reveal, a curved-out shiny surface reflects almost everything around it, no matter what direction its seen from. The glint of sunlight reflected off these shiny jets made them easy to pick out. Many operators of combat aircraft performed studies to try and figure out how to best paint an aircraft so that it could not easily be picked out against blue sky, clouds, or haze. The US military performed studies and actually concluded that pink made for an outstanding low-visibility colour, but only the Brits actually implemented this idea, on their high-altitude recon aircraft. Still, a light grey colour was found to be about as effective. Throughout the 60s and 70s, more and more military aircraft were painted in what is now called low-visibility grey. This colour is similar to that of a cloudy sky, or of the haze that often covers distant objects. The background of an aircraft seen from below is still generally brighter than if it is seen from above, so many combat aircraft are painted mostly in light grey, with somewhat darker grey on the tops of the wings and fuselage, and/or somewhat lighter grey on the belly. These two-tone or three-tone lowvisibility light-grey schemes are standard today over most of the worlds air forces and navies. (It is interesting to note that most birds that live by the shore, and most fish and marine mammals, have similar two-tone or threetone grey camouflage).

t should also be noted that higher-flying aircraft fly under a darker sky, with more haze between them and the ground, and are lit from below at least as much as from above (due to the scattering of light in the atmosphere). They are therefore painted dark grey. One way to understand this is that the sky is really black (space), but air and dust create a deep, misty, light-coloured, hazy layer between us and the black sky. The higher up something is, the more lightening is caused by the airs haze when we look up from the ground, and the more this haze (which is illuminated by the sun) shines light on the aircrafts underside. An airliner flying very high almost always looks white, because it is being illuminated from below by the hazy atmosphere and because we have a lot of light-coloured haze between us and the airplane. So for lower altitudes, a light-grey aircraft will look to be the same colour as the sky (since the air does not lighten its colour, and the low-altitude sky is light) but at high altitudes, a dark grey colour is better (since the air lightens it to the same colour as the rest of the sky as we see it from the surface or, when seen from altitude, it is dark like the sky around it even when lit from below). If you go beyond the atmosphere into space, black would be ideal for disappearing into the background. So helicopters, A-10 Warthogs, and other aircraft meant for low-altitude operations are painted light grey. KC-10s, bombers (like the B-1, B-2, and B-52), the F-22, and other aircraft meant to do a lot of flying around 50,000 feet are painted dark grey. Extreme high-flyers like the U-2 and SR-71 are painted black. How the F-117 came to be painted black is an interesting story. Even at night, black is not as good as dark grey for blending into the background. Stars and the moon provide some light, and a shadow against them is noticeable. In areas with more light pollution, where stars are hard to see and moonlight does not add much to ambient

illumination, a black shape moving through the sky is also noticeable. The air illuminated at night over cities (especially when cloudy) would also make a black aircraft stick out like a sore thumb, while a grey aircraft would blend into the clouds. For non-light-polluted areas where the stars can be seen at night, an almost-white colour might actually be least visible. When the F-117 was being test-flown, Lockheed engineers researched all this, and presented a report to the US Air Force suggesting that their new stealthy fighter-bomber be painted the standard low-visibility grey with a very light grey belly. The commanders in charge of the F-117 program, however, thought that the F-117 could never survive daytime operations, and decided that painting them black would prevent mission planners from ever deploying the F-117 outside the cover of night. So it was painted black not for stealth, but so that the aircraft would not be flown through undue risk. However, in late 2003, some F-117s were finally painted in lowvisibility grey, and (just as the commanders feared) were evaluated for daytime operations.

3.1.2 INFRARED STEALTH

Infrared radiation (i.e., electromagnetic waves in the. 721000 micron range of the spectrum) are emitted by all matter above absolute zero; hot materials, such as engine exhaust gases or wing surfaces heated by friction with the air, emit more infrared radiation than cooler materials. Heat-

seeking missiles and other weapons zero in on the infrared glow of hot aircraft parts. Infrared stealth, therefore, requires that aircraft parts and emissions, particularly those associated with engines, be kept as cool as possible. Embedding jet engines inside the fuselage or wings is one basic design step toward infrared stealth. Other measures include extra shielding of hot parts, mixing of cool air with hot exhausts before emission; splitting of the exhaust stream by passing it through parallel baffles so that it mixes with cooler air more quickly; directing of hot exhausts upward, away from ground observers; and the application of special coatings to hot spots to absorb and diffuse heat over larger areas. Active countermeasures against infrared detection and tracking can be combined with passive stealth measures; these include infrared jamming (i.e., mounting of flickering infrared radiators near engine exhausts to confuse the tracking circuits of heat-seeking missiles) and the launching of infrared decoy flares. Combat helicopters, which travel at low altitudes and at low speeds, are particularly vulnerable to heat-seeking weapons and have been equipped with infrared jamming devices for several decades. Now we are going to study that how heat sensors work? Well, when something is hot, it emits electromagnetic radiation that is, light. When something is REALLY hot, you can see that light just using your eyes, such as when metal gets red-hot, or when it melts by being yellow-hot or even white-hot. Light bulbs also glow because they are heated by an electric current. However, even if something is not hot enough to glow visibly, it still glows in the infra-red part of the spectrum. Humans cant see infra-red light, but its not too hard to make an electronic camera that can. In fact, many electronic night-vision devices work not only by amplifying the low

level of ambient visible light, but also by seeing infra-red light that is emitted by warm things. (You have probably seen videos taken from police helicopters where criminals running away appear as white outlines against a dark background). Some of these devices even come with infra-red flashlights which emit light that is invisible to people who are not looking through the device. That way you can light up a room without this being visible to anyone else. Some Sony digital cameras and camcorders have this nightshot technology and can be used in (what appears to the naked eye to be) absolute darkness. Anyways, the hotter something is, the more infra-red light it radiates. So, if you could see infra-red, then a jet engine would glow very visibly, as would the hot exhaust coming out of it. In addition, the leading edges of the airplane (the front of the wing and the nose, where air first hits the airplane and can be compressed and heated during high-speed flight) also become quite hot. How can an airplane hide this heat from the enemys sensors? One way is to have the engine sit on top of the airplane, rather than underneath, such as on the B-2 bomber, Global Hawk UAV, and a few other airplane types. This makes the heat radiate out the top of the airplane, rather than out the bottom, making detection by ground-based sensors more difficult (the B-2 also flies higher than most airplanes). In addition, the back of the engine (the hottest part) can be hidden between two tails, which means an infra-red sensor will not see this hottest part unless it is looking at the airplane directly from behind. The A-10 Warthog and the Global Hawk UAV have the tails hiding the backs of the engines in this manner, making it harder for heat-seeking missiles to track these aircraft except directly from behind. These techniques only block your radiation

from being seen from a few directions, though, so you better place your engines such that the tail and/or the rest of the airplane blocks the radiation from going in the direction where you think the airplane is most likely to be attacked from. Another way to hide your heat is to cover (i.e. paint) your plane with a material that does not radiate easy-to-detect radiation. This can be done in two ways. One, some materials have lower emissivities than others. This mean that the relationship between how hot something is and how much heat it radiates is not the same for all materials. So if you find a material that does not radiate much heat at the temperatures your plane will be at, you should cover your airplane in that material. The other way to keep your airplanes infra-red radiation from being picked up is by radiating at wavelengths that are more easily absorbed and scattered by the air. Infrared just means light with a wavelength too long to be seen by the human eye, The wavelength of infra-red light can vary from just a little longer than red light, to billions of times that. So there is a whole range of infrared light wavelengths, like with visible light. Some of them slip through the air fairly easily and can be seen for tens of miles, but some of them are not quite as penetrative, as they get absorbed or scattered by the air. Now, as you can probably deduce, the relationship between how hot something is and what wavelength of light it emits is not the same for everything (not everything is a Black Body that follows Wiens Law). At a certain temperature, for example, some metals may be red-hot, some may be yellow-hot at that temperature, some may be white-hot, and some may barely give off a visible glow at that same temperature and emit in infra-red wavelengths instead. So different materials emit radiation in different

wavelengths at different temperatures. Once you know the temperature your airplane skin will probably be at (given things like how much it compresses the air around it, how hot the engine gets, etc.) then you should find a material that, when heated to that temperature, emits infra-red light in a wavelength that does not penetrate the air very well, but instead in a wavelength that gets absorbed or scattered by the air. That way, if you cover your airplane in that material, the air will act like a fog to cover your heat, and thus keep infra-red sensors (and heat-seeking missiles) from detecting you unless youre extremely close to them. You might think that just using some magic paint that emits infra-red radiation a little differently will not make a significant difference (especially if you studied heattransfer infra-red radiation, black bodies, Wiens Law, etc). But youd be wrong. While developing the F-117, Lockheed painted an airliner with different materials that they thought would reduce the infra-red radiation emitted. One of these materials reduced the detectable infra-red emissions of the airliner to about 10% of what they were before! The third and last way to hide your heat from infra-red sensors is the one most commonly associated with stealth aircraft. The concept is a simple one, but implementing it (in such a way that your engines thrust is not ruined and your engine nozzle doesnt melt) is extremely challenging, and was in fact one of the most troublesome features during the F-117s development. The concept is this: Your jet engine ejects out the back a large quantity of hot gas, all the time. This massive plume of hot air behind your aircraft can make life very easy for your enemy if he has an infra-red sensor (especially if he has a heat-seeking missile). You can imagine an airplane flying forward and leaving behind a very long cylinder of hot air.

On the surface of this cylinder, where hot engine air meets the cold outside air, the hot cylinder air is cooled and mixes with colder air. However, the inside of the cylinder stays warm for a while, making it easy to detect. The obvious solution to this problem is to flatten the cylinder of hot air into a sheet, so that ALL the hot air is cooled quickly as it immediately mixes with cold air. This means that, instead of having a round nozzle on the back of your engine, you need a flattened nozzle, one that goes from a round tube to a thin, narrow slit. (Some hair dryers actually have nozzles like this, if that helps you visualize what Im talking about). The problems with this are that the air gets slowed down a little bit on its way out, making you lose some thrust, and that the nozzle gets very hot with all that surface area exposed to hot air, so you probably need Space-Shuttle materials to keep it from melting. This will also make the back of your airplane very hot, so you need to manage its infra-red emissions by using the methods described in the previous paragraphs. Despite these problems, a flattened exhaust nozzle is a common characteristic of stealth aircraft, and the only way to keep heat-seeking missiles from easily detecting the air coming out of your engines. Many stealth aircraft even pump some ambient air into the exhaust ducts, to make the exhaust start cooling even before it leaves the airplane. And that's how you keep your airplane from being picked up by FLIR sensors and from being shot down by heat-seeking missiles.

3.1.3 Acoustic Stealth

Although sound moves too slowly to be an effective locating signal for antiaircraft weapons, for low-altitude flying it is still best to be inaudible to ground observers. Several ultra-quiet, low-altitude reconnaissance aircraft, such as Lockheed's QT-2 and YO-3A, have been developed since the 1960s. Aircraft of this type are ultralight, run on small internal combustion engines quieted by silencer-suppressor mufflers, and are driven by large, often wooden propellers. They make about as much sound as gliders and have very low infrared emissions as well because of their low energy consumption. The U.S. F-117 stealth fighter, which is designed to fly at high speed at very low altitudes, also incorporates acoustic-stealth measures, including sound-absorbent linings inside its engine intake and exhaust cowlings. Sound is possibly the least important of the four aspects of stealth, but it has been given significant thought. The sound of an aircraft usually alerts you to its presence, rather than revealing its precise location. This allows you to start looking more thoroughly, or to point your eyes and your sensors in roughly the right direction. Also, weapons cannot be guided by the sound an aircraft makes while anti-aircraft artillery and missiles can be guided visually or by radar or infra-red. Still, it is best that an aircraft flying over enemy territory not be given away by its sound, if its sound would be the first thing to alert the enemy to the aircrafts presence. Not being heard at least buys the pilot more time and gives him the element of

surprise. For military cargo aircraft and spyplanes, sound may mean the difference between being shot down or not. There are basically three approaches to making an aircraft not be heard. The first is to fly very high. An airplane ten miles above the earth will not come any less than ten miles away from someone on the ground. Even the loudest of aircraft can get away with flying that high and not being heard (unless they generate a sonic boom). Most military aircraft fly comfortably at 50,000 feet and not-so-comfortably at 60,000 feet. That is well outside of hearing range. The problem with this approach is that bombs delivered from lower altitudes tend to be more accurate, so most combat aircraft do eventually have to fly low enough to be heard. If nothing else, they must take off and land, although they ideally will enter and exit enemy territory at altitude. The second way to avoid being heard is to fly near or past the speed of sound. This guarantees that you will not possibly be heard until you are flying past your enemy. Unfortunately, it also means you WILL be heard once you are starting to fly away from your target, even if you are flying very high. You do get the element of surprise, though, at least from humans (if not from radars). Another problem with this approach is that almost all aircraft need to use afterburners in order to fly this fast, and that the air being slowed down from these speeds as it enters a jet engine gets quite hot. This means almost no jet can fly at the speed of sound for more than 10 or 20 minutes before their engine is too hot and/or fuel runs out. This is enough for a high-speed low-altitude dash once the target is near, but not for the whole mission the rest of the mission is flown higher and slower.

(At the speed of sound, youre doing 12 miles a minute, so even 10 or 20 minutes gets you pretty far). One exception to this rule is the F-22, which can sustain supersonic speeds without the use of the afterburner, a capability called supercruise. The F-22 is the only combat aircraft that can fly its entire mission above the speed of sound. (It has been claimed, but not demonstrated, that the Eurofighter Typhoon can also do this. And, of course, so could a Concorde, but the Concorde is not a combat aircraft). The last approach to not being heard is to, well, actually make a quieter airplane. Two things cause an airplane to make noise: the slipstream (the air being made turbulent as it flows past the airplane) and the engine. To lower slipstream noise, you have to make the airplane smoother and reduce the places where air moves in turbulent, erratic, or otherwise non-constant or non-smooth ways. Luckily, these same measures also lower drag, so in general an airplane that experiences little air resistance (which is one of the primary goals of any airplanes design) also produces little noise as it moves through the air. Similarly, engines that are more efficient tend to produce less noise. An efficient engine is one that moves large amounts of air by a little bit, while an inefficient engine takes a small amount of air and moves it a lot. Because of this, high-bypass-ratio turbofans make very little noise. In fact, a 777 about to land makes about as much noise from the flaps down, gear out, wings and fuselage at a high angle of attack, etc, as it does from its two GE90 engines. For the first time, airliner engines are so efficient that they make as little noise as the rest of the airplane makes when it moves through the air. Unfortunately, though, combat aircraft tend to have inefficient engines. Taking a small amount of air and moving it a lot means you can go faster (because of the moving a lot equal and

opposite reaction, right?) and means your narrower engine accelerates quickly when you need a lot of thrust immediately. So combat aircraft are pretty loud, except for the cargo aircraft and mid-air refuelers that are basically adapted airliner designs. The one big exception to this is the tankkilling A-10 Warthog. It was built to loiter for extended periods of time over the battlefield. Since, for this role, endurance is more important than speed, it was given big high(ish)-aspect-ratio wings, and two nice big slow high-bypass-ratio turbofan engines. These make the A-10 one of the quietest airplanes in operation today. Even though it can fly nowhere near the speed of sound, you dont hear it until its right on top of you. Nothing illustrates better how quiet the A-10 is than an airshow Heritage Flight. Often at airshows, the US Air Force flies modern aircraft alongside older combat aircraft from World War 2. Usually, this involves an A-10 finishing its demo by doing a few passes flying in formation with a P-51, a small single-engine propeller-driven fighter from World War 2. The amazing thing is, when they go by, you cant really hear the A-10 over the noise of the little P-51s engine and propeller. So, as you can see, acoustic stealth is really a low priority, and usually comes as the by-product of other design goals (such as fuel efficiency, endurance, speed, or high-altitude flight). Mission planning might take into account the need to not be heard, but even that mission profile fly subsonically and at high altitudes until approaching the target, then fly lower and faster is a profile primarily designed to avoid the enemys weapons, not so much acoustic detection. The one time when acoustic stealth was top priority was when troop movements in Vietnam were observed from high-flying, glider-like aircraft. These were extremely

efficient (less drag, less noise, and long endurance) and quite slow aircraft. They could fly high, but then they would have a harder time carrying out their recon mission (especially at night), so they had fly low and quietly. Lockheed designed a few airplanes around this philosophy, with huge thin wings and slim fuselages (less turbulence in the slipstream), special engine cowlings to muffle engine noise, and very slow-spinning propellers. These designs originated with the X-26 experiments (basically a Schweitzer glider), followed by the powered X-26B which became the operational QT2, which evolved into the Q-Star. The Q-Star really epitomized this unusual design philosophy, possibly the most acoustically stealthy powered aircraft ever. Experience from this program led Lockheed to design the YO-3, a more refined, less unconventional design. These aircraft could fly quite low at night over enemy camps without being heard, which is really remarkable.

3.1.4 RADAR STEALTH

RADAR is the use of reflected electromagnetic waves in the microwave part of the spectrum to detect targets or map landscapes. RADAR first illuminates the target, that is, transmits a radio pulse in its direction. If any of this energy is reflected by the target, some of it may be collected by a receiving antenna. By comparing the delay times for various echoes, information about the geometry of the target can be derived and, if necessary, formed into an image. RADAR stealth or invisibility requires that a craft absorb incident RADAR pulses, actively cancel them by emitting inverse waveforms, deflect them away from receiving antennas, or all of the above. Absorption and deflection, treated below, are the most important prerequisites of RADAR stealth. And now we get to what people really mean when they say stealth. This is the new technology that makes the latest combat aircraft look really funny. Why do they look that way? What is it that those shapes are trying to do? To understand that, you need to first understand how radar works. In theory, radar works like visible light: A source shines it onto an object, the illuminated object reflects it towards a sensor, the sensor picks up this reflected light and can thus locate and identify the object. There is one big difference, though: With visible light, we are used to having many sources all over the place. Either its the sun and the sky and the things they illuminate, or its a bunch of light bulbs in at least a few spots in the room.

With radar, however, there are no other sources, just the one by the sensor. This would be equivalent to wondering around a football field in a moonless night trying to with only a flashlight in your hand. Say I tell you that, somewhere on this field, there is a black pole sticking up a few feet from the ground, with a model airplane at the tip. How do you find it? Youll probably sweep the flashlight beam slowly around you until you see it illuminate something that is not the ground. If the model airplane is shiny, it will reflect light from the flashlight But it might reflect all your light away from you, and all you will see on it is the reflection of darkness, which is indistinguishable from the darkness behind the airplane, unless it reflects your light towards you and you catch the glint of the reflection of your flashlight on the shiny model. Thus, to be stealthy to radar, an airplane can do two things: Absorb the radar reflection (be black), and reflect it away from the sender (be shiny and shaped in a way that does not reflect radar in every direction). There is a third thing, but its a little trickier to understand. The airplane surface can reflect the radar signal twice, such that each reflection is half a wavelength out of tune with the other, so the reflections cancel out. Thats the basic idea behind noise-cancelling headphones: They hear the sound outside and play for you the same sounds but half a wavelength off, thus cancelling much of the ambient noise. They can do this and play music at the same time, or they can just play the external noise half a wavelength off if you just want some peace and quiet.

Of these three goals (reflecting radar away from the sender, absorbing the radar energy, and reflecting the radar waves in a way that cancels them out), reflecting radar away from the sender is by far the most important. It is the thickness of your airplanes skin, and the relationship between the skin and the internal components, that will determine whether youll reflect radar in such a way that it will cancel itself off. It is the materials on your airplane skin that will either absorb the radar energy, reflect it, or let it pass through. It is the shape of your airplane that will determine whether the radar gets reflected back to the sender or away from the sender. Denys Overholser, a Lockheed mathematician and electrical engineer who had the brilliant idea of using a highly swept, wedge-like, faceted design for stealth (which eventually became the F-117), once famously said that there are four elements that are important in reducing the radar reflection of an airplane: shape, shape, shape, and materials. So you can guess which one of these really matters. The problem with reducing RCS is that the detection range varies with the fourth root of the RCS. This means that if a given radar can detect an airplane from 100 miles away, then reducing the RCS by half would mean this airplane can be detected by this radar from 84 miles away. Youd have to reduce the RCS by a factor of sixteen, down to 6.25% of what it was, so that this radar could detect you from only 50 miles away not really much of an improvement as far as evading the radar, given you had to reduce your RCS by a HUGE amount. Youd have to reduce your RCS to

less than one percent of normal before you can fly with relative impunity from most radar systems. Many radar systems have a range of a few hundred miles. But to destroy them, you must get to within a few miles of them. To make this possible, RCS must be reduced by at least a factor of 10,000 equivalent from taking an airplane the size of a large combat jet but having it return as little radar as a pigeon would. Like I said, there are three ways of going about reducing RCS: absorbing radar (skin material), reflecting radar waves that cancel themselves out (skin thickness, depth of internal components), and reflecting radar away from its origin (aircraft shape). Of these, the last is by far the most important. So lets start with what is the least important, and today the least commonly used: Before we go into how the skin shape, materials and thickness ought to be chosen, let me explain just a little bit about how radar reflections are described. In other words, how do you measure how stealthy a stealth plane really is? Well, different shapes reflect radar in different ways when in different orientations. An airplane may reflect a lot of radar at you when seen from the side, but almost none when seen from the back, for example. So a small airplane seen from the side might return about as much radar as a large airplane seen from the back. Radar engineers and operators measure the radar return of a given airplane from a given angle in terms of its Radar Cross Section, or RCS. This is measured as an area, correspondent to the cross-sectional area of a sphere that returns the same amount of radar. So, if a 747 seen from the back has a Radar Cross Section of ten square meters,

then this means that it returns as much radar as a sphere with a crosssectional area of ten meters. (This sphere would be about 3.5 meters across). However, from the side, the 747 may have an RCS of 100 square meters (equivalent to a sphere about 11.3 meters across). Seen from below, it might have an RCS of a few hundred square meters. I just made all these numbers up, but you get the idea (and theyre probably in the ballpark for a 747s RCS). So the challenge is to reduce the RCS from as many angles as possible, especially from the front. Reducing RCS from the nose-on angle is by far the most important, as that is the angle your enemy will see you from while you are on your way to bomb them.

3.1.5 ABSORBTION

Metallic surfaces reflect RADAR; therefore, stealth aircraft parts must either be coated with RADAR-absorbing materials or made out of them to begin with. The latter is preferable because an aircraft whose parts are intrinsically RADAR-absorbing derives aerodynamic as well as stealth function from them, whereas a RADAR-absorbent coating is,

aerodynamically speaking, dead weight. The F-117 stealth aircraft is built mostly out of a RADAR-absorbent material termed Fibaloy, which consists of glass fibers embedded in plastic, and of carbon fibers, which are used mostly for hot spots like leading wing-edges and panels covering the jet engines. Thanks to the use of such materials, the airframe of the F-117 (i.e., the plane minus its electronic gear, weapons, and engines) is only about 10% metal. Both the B-2 stealth bomber and the F-117 reflect about as much RADAR as a hummingbird. Many RADAR-absorbent plastics, carbon-based materials, ceramics, and blends of these materials have been developed for use on stealth aircraft. Combining such materials with RADAR-absorbing surface geometry enhances stealth. For example, wing surfaces can be built on a metallic substrate that is shaped like a field of pyramids with the spaces between the pyramids filled by a RADAR-absorbent material. RADAR waves striking the surface zigzag inward between the pyramid walls, which increases absorption by lengthening signal path through the absorbent material. Another example of structural absorption is the placement of metal screens over the intake vents of jet engines. These screensused, for example, on

the F-117 stealth fighterabsorb RADAR waves exactly like the metal screens embedded in the doors of microwave ovens. It is important to prevent RADAR waves from entering jet intakes, which can act as resonant cavities (echo chambers) and so produce bright RADAR reflections. Many RADAR-absorbent plastics, carbon-based materials, ceramics, and blends of these materials have been developed for use on stealth aircraft.

3.1.6 DEFLECTION

Most RADARs are monostatic, that is, for reception they use either the same antenna as for sending or a separate receiving antenna colocated with the sending antenna; deflection therefore means reflecting RADAR pulses in any direction other than the one they came from. This in turn requires that stealth aircraft lack flat, vertical surfaces that could act as simple RADAR mirrors. RADAR can also be strongly reflected wherever three planar surfaces meet at a corner. Planes such as the B-52 bomber, which have many flat, vertical surfaces and RADAR-reflecting corners, are notorious for their RADAR-reflecting abilities; stealth aircraft, in contrast, tend to be highly angled and streamlined, presenting no flat surfaces at all to an observer that is not directly above or below them. The B-2 bomber, for example, is shaped like a boomerang. A design dilemma for stealth aircraft is that they need not only to be invisible to RADAR but to use RADAR; inertial guidance, the Global

Positioning System, and laser RADAR can all help aircraft navigate stealthily, but an aircraft needs conventional RADAR to track incoming missiles and hostile aircraft. Yet the transmission of RADAR pulses by a stealth aircraft wishing to avoid RADAR detection is self-contradictory. Furthermore, RADAR and radio antennas are inherently RADARreflecting.

3.2 RAM ABSORBING MATERIALS (RAM)

Radar-absorbent material, or RAM, is a class of materials used in stealth technology to disguise a vehicle or structure from radar detection. A material's absorbency at a given frequency of radar wave depends upon its composition. RAM cannot perfectly absorb radar at any frequency, but any given composition does have greater absorbency at some frequencies than others; there is no one RAM that is suited to absorption of all radar frequencies. A common misunderstanding is that RAM makes an object invisible to radar. A radar absorbent material can significantly reduce an object's radar cross-section in specific radar frequencies, but it does not result in "invisibility" on any frequency. Bad weather may contribute to deficiencies in stealth capability. A particularly disastrous example occurred during the Kosovo war, in which moisture on the surface of an F-117 Nighthawk allowed long-wavelength radar to track and shoot it down. RAM is only a part of achieving stealth. The earliest forms of RAM were the materials

called Sumpf and Schornsteinfeger, a coating used in Germany during the World War II for the snorkels (or periscopes) of submarines, to lower their reflectivity in the 20-centimeter radar band the Allies used. The material had a layered structure and was based on graphite particles and other semiconductive materials embedded in a rubber matrix. The

material's efficiency was partially reduced by the action of sea water.

Germany also pioneered the first aircraft to use RAM during World War II, in the form of the Horten Ho 229. It used a carbon-impregnated plywood that would have made it very stealthy to Britain's primitive radar of the time. However it is unknown if the carbon was incorporated for stealth reasons or because of Germany's metal shortage.

3.2.1 TYPES OF RAM

IRON BALL PAINT One of the most commonly known types of RAM is iron ball paint. It contains tiny spheres coated with carbonyl iron or ferrite. Radar waves induce molecular oscillations from the alternating magnetic field in this paint, which leads to conversion of the radar energy into heat. The heat is then transferred to the aircraft and dissipated. The iron particles in the paint are obtained by decomposition of iron pentacarbonyl and may contain traces of carbon, oxygen and nitrogen. A related type of RAM consists of neoprene polymer sheets with ferrite grains or carbon black particles (containing about 30% of

crystalline graphite) embedded in the polymer matrix. The tiles were used on early versions of the F-117A Nighthawk, although more recent models use painted RAM. The painting of the F-117 is done by industrial robots with the plane covered in tiles glued to the fuselage and the remaining gaps filled with iron ball paint. The United States Air Force introduced a radar absorbent paint made from both ferrofluidic and non-magnetic substances. By reducing the reflection of electromagnetic waves, this material helps to reduce the visibility of RAM painted aircraft on radar. The Israeli firm Nano flight has also made a radar-absorbing paint that uses nanoparticles.

FOAM ABSORBER Foam absorber is used as lining of anechoic chambers for electromagnetic radiation measurements. This material typically consists of a fireproofed urethane foam loaded with carbon black, and cut into long pyramids. The length from base to tip of the pyramid structure is chosen based on the lowest expected frequency and the amount of absorption required. For low frequency damping, this distance is often 24 inches, while high frequency panels are as short as 3-4 inches. Panels of RAM are installed with the tips pointing inward to the chamber. Pyramidal RAM attenuates signal by two effects: scattering and absorption. Scattering can occur both coherently, when reflected waves are in-phase but directed away from the receiver, or incoherently where waves are picked up by the receiver but are out of phase and thus have lower signal strength. This incoherent scattering also occurs within the foam structure, with the suspended carbon particles promoting destructive interference. Internal scattering can result in as much as 10dB of attenuation. Meanwhile, the pyramid shapes are cut at angles that maximize the number of bounces a wave makes within the structure. With each bounce, the wave loses energy to the foam material and thus exits with lower signal strength. Other foam absorbers are available in flat sheets, using an increasing gradient of carbon loadings in different layers.

JAUMANN ABSORBER A Jaumann absorber or Jaumann layer is a radar absorbent device. When first introduced in 1943, the Jaumann layer consisted of two equally-spaced reflective surfaces and a conductive ground plane. One can think of it as a generalized, multi-layered Salisbury screen as the principles are similar.

Being a resonant absorber (i.e. it uses wave interfering to cancel the reflected wave), the Jaumann layer is dependent upon the /4 spacing between the first reflective surface and the ground plane and between the two reflective surfaces (a total of /4 + /4 ). Because the wave can resonate at two frequencies, the Jaumann layer produces two absorption maxima across a band of wavelengths (if using the two layers configuration). These absorbers must have all of the layers parallel to each other and the ground plane that they conceal. More elaborate Jaumann absorbers use series of dielectric surfaces that separate conductive sheets. The conductivity of those sheets increases with proximity to the ground plane.

CHAPTER 4

4.1 Stealthy Flying

Stealth technology is most effective when combined with other measures for avoiding detection. For example, the F-117 and B-2 are both designed to fly at night, the most obvious visual stealth measure. Further, the F-117 is designed to fly close to the ground (i.e., at less than 500 feet [152 m]). Normal ground-based RADAR cannot see oncoming targets until they are in a line of direct sight, which, for a fast, low-flying aircraft approaching through hilly terrain, may not occur until the aircraft is almost above the RADAR. Even down-looking RADARs carried on aircraft have more difficulty tracking craft that are flying near ground-level, mingling their reflections with the noisy pattern of echoes from the ground itself ("ground clutter"). The F-117 therefore can fly close to the ground, swerving under computer control to avoid obstacles such as hills or towers. This flight style is known as jinking, snaking, or terrain following. (An aircraft such as the B-2 is too large to perform the rapid maneuvers required for jinking, and so flies at higher altitudes.) At the opposite extreme from jinking flight, ultra-high altitudes have also been used for stealth purposes. Reconnaissance aircraft deployed by the U.S. since the 1950s, including the U-2 and the SR-71, have set most of the altitude records for "air-breathing" craft (i.e., craft that do not, like rockets,

carry their own oxygen). Such planes fly near the absolute limit of aerodynamic action; if they went any higher, there would be not be enough air to provide lift.

4.2 Counter Stealth

An aircraft cannot be made truly invisible. For example, no matter how cool the exhaust vents of an aircraft are kept, the same amount of heat is always liberated by burning a given amount of fuel, and this heat must be left behind the aircraft as a trail of warm air. Infrared-detecting devices might be devised that could image this heat trail as it formed, tracking a stealth aircraft. Furthermore, every jet aircraft leaves swirls of airvorticesin its wake. Doppler RADAR, which can image wind velocities, might pinpoint such disturbances if it could be made sufficiently high-resolution. Other anti-stealth techniques could include the detection of aircraft-caused disturbances in the Earth's magnetic field (magnetic anomaly detection), networks of low frequency radio links to detect stealth aircraft by interruptions in transmission, the use of specially shaped RADAR pulses that resist absorption, and netted RADAR. Netted RADAR is the use of more than one receiver, and possibly more than one transmitter, in a network. Since stealth aircraft rely partly on deflecting RADAR pulses, receivers located off the line of pulse transmission might be able to detected deflected echoes. By illuminating a target area using multiple transmitters and linking multiple receivers into a coordinated network, it should be possible to greatly increase one's chances of detecting a stealthy target. No single receiver may record a strong or steady echo from any

single transmitter, but the network as a whole might collect enough information to track a stealth target.

4.3 Stealth in Wartime

Stealthy jet aircraft have been used for surveillance since the 1950s, but dedicated-design stealth warplanes were not used in combat prior to the first Gulf War (1991). In that war, F-117swhich first became operational in 1982made some 1,300 sorties and were the only aircraft to bomb targets in downtown Baghdad. B-2 bombers were first used in combat in the Kosovo conflict in 1999, flying bombing sorties from Missouri to Yugoslavia (with midflight refueling over the Atlantic). F-117s were also used in the Kosovo conflict; one was shot down and two were damaged by enemy fire. The first overseas combat deployment of B-2 bombers occurred in 2003, during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Stealth technology is also employed in U.S. cruise missiles such as the Tomahawk and the AGM-129A. The Tomahawk, a tactical weapon that can carry either nuclear or conventional warheads, has been deployed in four versions, including air-, sea-, and ground-launched types, and was used extensively in combat in both Gulf Wars and in Afghanistan in 2002. The AGM-129A is stealthier than the 1970s-vintage Tomahawk; it carries the W80 250-kiloton nuclear warhead and is designed to be fired from under the wings of the B-52H Stratofortress strategic bomber. The AGM129A has not been used in combat.

4.4 Disadvantages of Stealth Technology

Stealth technology has its own disadvantages like other technologies. Stealth aircraft cannot fly as fast or is not maneuverable like conventional aircraft. The F-22 and the aircraft of its category proved this wrong up to an extent. Though the F-22 may be fast or maneuverable or fast, it can't go beyond Mach 2 and cannot make turns like the Su-37. Another serious disadvantage with the stealth aircraft is the reduced amount of payload it can carry. As most of the payload is carried internally in a stealth aircraft to reduce the radar signature, weapons can only occupy a less amount of space internally. On the other hand a conventional aircraft can carry much more payload than any stealth aircraft of its class. Whatever may be the disadvantage a stealth aircraft can have, the biggest of all disadvantages that it faces is its sheer cost. Stealth aircraft literally costs its weight in gold. Fighters in service and in development for the USAF like the B-2 ($2 billion), F-117 ($70 million) and the F-22 ($100 million) are the costliest planes in the world. After the cold war, the number of B-2 bombers was reduced sharply because of its staggering price tag and maintenance charges. There is a possible solution for this problem. In the recent past the Russian design firms Sukhoi and Mikhoyan Gurevich (MiG) have developed fighters which will have a price tag similar to that of the Su-30MKI. This can be a positive step to make stealth technology affordable for third world countries.

4.5 Stealth aircraft of yesteryears, today and tomorrow

Stealth technology is a concept that is not at all new. During the Second World War, allied aircraft used tin and aluminium foils in huge numbers to confuse German radar installations. This acted as a cover for allied bombers to conduct air raids. This method was later used as chaffs by aircrafts to dodge radar guided missiles. The first stealth aircraft was the F-117 developed by Lockheed Martin. It was a top-secret project developed by its Skunk Works unit. The F-117 was only revealed during the late 80s and then saw action in the Persian Gulf. In due course of time the B-2 was developed as a successor to the B-2. Though both of them serve different purposes, the B-2 went a step ahead of the F-117. The B-2 was developed to deliver nuclear weapons and other guided and unguided bombs. On the other hand the F-117 was developed to deliver its precision laser guided bombs. Another stealth aircraft, which made a lot of promises and in the end ended up in a trashcan, was the A-12. It was a fighter that was designed to replace the F-14 and F-18 in the future. The capabilities of this aircraft were boasted to such an extent that the project ended up in a big mess. Billions of dollars were wasted for nothing. Stealth technology became famous with the ATF contest. The BoeingLockheed YF-22 and the McDonell Douglas-Grumman YF-23 fought for the milti-billion contract to build the fighter that would take the USAF into

the fifth generation fighter era. The Boeing-Lockheed won the contract and the F-22 was approved to be the replacement for the F-15 "Eagle" interceptor. America now has a competitors, Russia decided to respond to the development of the F-22 by making the Su-47 (S-37) "Berkut" and the MiG-35 "Super Fulcrum / Raptor Killer". These fighters were developed by the two leading aviation firms in Russia Sukhoi and Mikhoyan Gurevich (MiG). The future of these projects totally depends on the funding which will be provided to the Russian defence sector. There are some hopes of increase in the funding to these projects as countries like India have started providing funds and technical assistance for these projects. Another competition that soon came into the spotlight after the ATF competition was the JSF. This time Boeing developed the X-32 and the with the experience gained from developing the F-22, they were tasked with making a replacement for the F-16. This saw great technological advances, as they had to make the first operational supersonic VSOL aircraft. Lockheed martin took the technical assistance of Russian scientists who developed the Yak-141. The Yak-141 is the first supersonic VSTOL aircraft. In the end the Lockheed team with its X-35 won the contract and the fighter was re-designated as the F-35. Many projects remain over the horizon that will use stealth technology as its primary capability. They come from some of the most unlikely contenders. These projects include the Euro JSF, which will be designed by the team that developed the EF-2000. Russia is stepping forward with its LFS project with the S-54 and other designs. Two new entries into this

field will be India and China. India will be introducing its MCA, which is a twin engine fighter without vertical stabilizers. This fighter will use thrust vectoring instead of rudders. China will be introducing the J-12 (F12/XXJ).

4.6 Future of Stealth Technology

Stealth technology is clearly the future of air combat. In the future, as air defence systems grow more accurate and deadly, stealth technology can be a factor for a decisive by a country over the other. In the future, stealth technology will not only be incorporated in fighters and bombers but also in ships, helicopters, tanks and transport planes. These are evident from the RAH-66 "Comanche" and the Sea Shadow stealth ship. Ever since the Wright brothers flew the first powered flight, the advancements in this particular field of technology has seen staggering heights. Stealth technology is just one of the advancements that we have seen. In due course of time we can see many improvements in the field of military aviation which would one-day even make stealth technology obsolete.

APPENDICES

PRINCIPLES OF RADAR TECHNOLOGY

Radar is something that is in use all around us, although it is normally invisible. Air traffic control uses radar to track planes both on the ground and in the air, and also to guide planes in for smooth landings. Police use radar to detect the speed of passing motorists. NASA uses radar to map the Earth and other planets, to track satellites and space debris and to help with things like docking and maneuvering. The military uses it to detect the enemy and to guide weapons. Meteorologists use radar to track storms, hurricanes and tornadoes. You even see a form of radar at many grocery stores when the doors open automatically! Obviously, radar is an extremely useful technology. When people use radar, they are usually trying to accomplish one of three things:

Detect the presence of an object at a distance - Usually the "something" is moving, like an airplane, but radar can also be used to detect stationary objects buried underground. In some cases, radar can identify an object as well; for example, it can identify the type of aircraft it has detected.

Detect the speed of an object - This is the reason why police use radar.

Map something - The space shuttle and orbiting satellites use something called Synthetic Aperture Radar to create detailed topographic maps of the surface of planets and moons. All three of these activities can be accomplished using two things you may be familiar with from everyday life: echo and Doppler shift. These two concepts are easy to understand in the realm of sound because your ears hear echo and Doppler shift every day. Radar makes use of the same techniques using radio waves.

ECHO

Echo is something you experience all the time. If you shout into a well or a canyon, the echo comes back a moment later. The echo occurs because some of the sound waves in your shout reflect off of a surface (either the water at the bottom of the well or the canyon wall on the far side) and travel back to your ears. The length of time between the moment you shout and the moment that you hear the echo is determined by the distance between you and the surface that creates the echo.

Fig 4: how is echo produced

DROPPLER SHIFT

Doppler shift is also common. You probably experience it daily (often without realizing it). Doppler shift occurs when sound is generated by, or reflected off of, a moving object. Doppler shift in the extreme creates sonic booms. Here's how to understand Doppler shift (you may also want to try this experiment in an empty parking lot). Let's say there is a car coming toward you at 60 miles per hour (mph) and its horn is blaring. You will hear the horn playing one "note" as the car approaches, but when the car passes you the sound of the horn will suddenly shift to a lower note. It's the same horn making the same sound the whole time. The change you hear is caused by Doppler shift.

Here's what happens. The speed of sound through the air in the parking lot is fixed. For simplicity of calculation, let's say it's 600 mph (the exact speed is determined by the air's pressure, temperature and humidity). Imagine that the car is standing still, it is exactly 1 mile away from you and it toots its horn for exactly one minute. The sound waves from the horn will propagate from the car toward you at a rate of 600 mph. What you will hear is a sixsecond delay (while the sound travels 1 mile at 600 mph) followed by exactly one minute's worth of sound. Now let's say that the car is moving toward you at 60 mph. It starts from a mile away and toots it's horn for exactly one minute. You will still hear the six-second delay. However, the sound will only play for 54 seconds. That's

because the car will be right next to you after one minute, and the sound at the end of the minute gets to you instantaneously. The car (from the driver's perspective) is still blaring its horn for one minute. Because the car is moving, however, the minute's worth of sound gets packed into 54 seconds from your perspective. The same number of sound waves are packed into a smaller amount of time. Therefore, their frequency is increased, and the horn's tone sounds higher to you. As the car passes you and moves away, the process is reversed and the sound expands to fill more time. Therefore, the tone is lower. You can combine echo and droppler shift in the following way. Say you send out a loud sound toward a car moving toward you. Some of the sound waves will bounce off the car (an echo). Because the car is moving toward you, however, the sound waves will be compressed. Therefore, the sound of the echo will have a higher pitch than the original sound you sent. If you measure the pitch of the echo, you can determine how fast the car is going.

SONIC BOOM

While we're here on the topic of sound and motion, we can also understand sonic booms. Say the car was moving toward you at exactly the speed of sound -- 700 mph or so. The car is blowing its horn. The sound waves generated by the horn cannot go any faster than the speed of sound, so both the car and the horn are coming at you at 700 mph, so all of the sound coming from the car "stacks up." You hear nothing, but you can see the car approaching. At exactly the same moment the car arrives, so does all of its sound and it is LOUD! That is a sonic boom. The same phenomenon happens when a boat travels through water faster than waves travel through the water (waves in a lake move at a speed of perhaps 5 mph -- all waves travel through their medium at a fixed speed). The waves that the boat generates "stack up" and form the V-shaped bow wave (wake) that you see behind the boat. The bow wave is really a sonic boom of sorts. It is the stacked-up combination of all of the waves the boat has generated. The wake forms a V shape, and the angle of the V is controlled by the speed of the boat.

We can learn a lot about sonic booms by looking at the wakes boats leave in the water. If you toss a pebble in a pond, little waves will form in concentric circles and propagate away from the point of impact. If a boat travels through the pond at 3 to 5 miles per hour, little waves will propagate in the

same way both ahead of and behind the boat, and the boat will travel through them. If a boat travels faster than the waves can propagate through water, then the waves "can't get out of the way" of the boat fast enough, and they form a wake. A wake is a larger single wave. It is formed out of all the little waves that would have propagated ahead of the boat but could not. When an airplane travels through the air, it produces sound waves. If the plane is travelling slower than the speed of sound (the speed of sound varies, but 700 mph is typical through air), then sound waves can propagate ahead of the plane. If the plane breaks the sound barrier and flies faster than the speed of sound, it produces a sonic boom when it flies past. The boom is the "wake" of the plane's sound waves. All of the sound waves that would have normally propagated ahead of the plane are combined together so at first you hear nothing, and then you hear the boom they create. It is just like being on the shore of a smooth lake when a boat speeds past. There is no disturbance in the water as the boat comes by, but eventually a large wave from the wake rolls onto shore. When a plane flies past at supersonic speeds the exact same thing happens, but instead of the large wake wave, you get a sonic boom.

UNDERSTANDING RADAR

We have seen that the echo of a sound can be used to determine how far away something is, and we have also seen that we can use the Doppler shift of the echo to determine how fast something is going. It is therefore possible to create a "sound radar," and that is exactly

what sonar is. Submarines and boats use sonar all the time. You could use the same principles with sound in the air, but sound in the air has a couple of problems:

Sound doesn't travel very far -- maybe a mile at the most. Almost everyone can hear sounds, so a "sound radar" would definitely disturb the neighbours (you can eliminate most of this problem by using ultrasound instead of audible sound).

Because the echo of the sound would be very faint, it is likely that it would be hard to detect. Radar therefore uses radio waves instead of sound. Radio waves travel far, are invisible to humans and are easy to detect even when they are faint. Let's take a typical radar set designed to detect airplanes in flight. The radar set turns on its transmitter and shoots out a short, high-intensity burst of high-frequency radio waves. The burst might last a microsecond. The radar set then turns off its transmitter, turns on its receiver and listens for an echo. The radar set measures the time it takes for the echo to arrive, as well as the Doppler shift of the echo. Radio waves travel at the speed of light, roughly 1,000 feet per microsecond; so if the radar set has a good high-

speed clock, it can measure the distance of the airplane very accurately. Using special signal processing equipment, the radar set can also measure the Doppler shift very accurately and determine the speed of the airplane. In ground-based radar, there's a lot more potential interference than in airbased radar. When a police radar shoots out a pulse, it echoes off of all sorts of objects -- fences, bridges, mountains, buildings. The easiest way to remove all of this sort of clutter is to filter it out by recognizing that it is not Doppler-shifted. A police radar looks only for Doppler-shifted signals, and because the radar beam is tightly focused it hits only one car. Police are now using laser to detect cars using laser, this is known as lidar.

REFERENCES

Introduction to radar systems Merrill I Skolnik www.wikipedia.com www.howstuffworks.com www.airplanedesign.info www.ausairpower.net

TECHNOLOGY