Could the B-2 Spirit Really have Active Stealth?

I know I've said in other threads that as far as we know, Stealth Technology is strictly passive. However, while looking for information on the B-2, I came across this:

According to a former WW2 pilot, it is rumored that up to 20 ground crew may have been fatally zapped by touching the B-2 too soon after it landed. Also the tires were reportedly built with external stainless steel casings to permit charge bleed off at touchdown.

Why is the plane electriclly charged in flight? Most planes are grounded, because a build up of electrical charge can cause a fire or an explosion. Secondly electrical charge or discharge can mess up electronics( this is the reason that lightening strikes are usually so dangerous to an aircraft!) But the B-2 was Design to hold an electrical charge while in flight

SOURCE: www.etheric.com...

Normally, electrically charging an aircraft in flight is extreemly dangerous. It can cause onboard fuel fires, or even explosions. I can't imagion why Northrop Grumman and the US Air Force would take such a dangerous chance with what is undoubtably one of the most expensive aircraft in the US Defense Department's inventory, unless they clearly saw a benefit that made it worth the risks!

Perhaps stealth is "semi-active", which would also explain why B-2 pilots have be said to refer to switching the aircrafts stsems into combat mode as "Stealthing Up" (Source: Bill Sweetman, Inside the Stealth Bomber MBI Publishing, 1999)

If this system were real, it would most likely work by passing an electrical charge through the aircraft's RAM skin while in flight. It is a known fact that Radar waves are electormagnetic in nature(just like light waves). Now the eletrical charge within the aircraft's skin would also make the plane magnatise slightly, in the same way that an elecrtomagnet works. As incomming radar waves enter this magnetic feild, some of their energy would slowly be stripped away and dissapated in another form, such as heat. Now, according to the DVD The B-2 Stealth Bomber, the B-2 actually has extreemly tiny holes in it's skin to allow mosture to escape for inside the skin. This tells us two important things:

1. the Skin of the B-2 has to either be hollow or pourous! Otherwise there is no way that mosture could build up inside if it.

2. Something about the RAM is causing condensation to form.

Using these facts, we can draw the conclusion that the skin of the B-2 has to be converting energy in the process of abosring the Radar energy. Therefore it would make sense to think that the B-2 could in fact be using some kind of an active system to achieve/enhance it's stealth features.

So, what do you think?

Tim

You do make some good points.

Excellent topic Ghost!

Keep digging, I think you may be on to something..

It's called Fiber Radio Optical ARCS (Active Radar Cancellation System). The system works by eletronically channeling radar enegy into the airframe and converting it into heat which can then be dispersed.

Fiber Radio Optical ARCS

Tim

[edit on 15-12-2006 by Ghost01]

I still think that the cloud that forms around the B2 bomber is unnatural and is a sign of active stealth/cloaking.

aerofiles.com...

I have written about this in past posts. There is no reason the B2 shouldn't have an active stealth system at the cost that it is.

Who knows, the cloud might b the initial stage of it going into a stealth/cloaking mode, after which it could only be seen by night vision. This would explain several things at once; such as the reason why UFO's are picked up by different optical frequencies outside of human sight, the reason why the B2 is very effective even though it doesn't travel that fast, the reason why the B2 has tiny holes in its skin(active stealth/cloaking), and finally the reason the US government is willing to pay so much money for a bomber.
Many have told me that it's just the B2 passing through condensation or through the sound barrier, I still believe that there is more to it.
It's just a thought.

Good Find Low Orbit!

That sure is a strange looking condesation cloud formation that is surrounding the B-2 in that picture. Usually condensation flows off of the trailing edge creating an aerodynamic contrail. the question is what would draw the condesation near the plane like that?

Perhaps you're on to something! Let's see what else we can find.

Tim

the b-2 is my fav aircraft, in the looks departement it certainly looks like something from will smiths 'indpendence day'.

This could be something along the lines of what your looking at. *warning pdf*



Anyway, I had been under the impression the B2 used a copper mesh to absorb the energy from the electromagnetic radar waves - converting it into current [I suppose in a process similar to a generator coil passing through a magnetic field]. Current generates heat in the mesh, which is then dissapated into the atmosphere.

Now the eletrical charge within the aircraft's skin would also make the plane magnatise slightly, in the same way that an elecrtomagnet works. As incomming radar waves enter this magnetic feild, some of their energy would slowly be stripped away and dissapated in another form, such as heat.

Complete pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo.

An electromagnet works because of current, not static charge as was described in the original post.

And if it were on, it would make no difference; a static magnetic field does not interact with incoming high-frequency microwave radiation (radar).

Interaction with matter (radar absorbing material) can turn incoming radiation into heat.

The static charge of the B2 has as far as I could guess has no constructive role. It would seem to be an unavoidable consequence of flying.

It may be a result of the physical nature of the skin (like how some materials like an acrylic blanket seem to get static charged easily) which had chemistry designed for stealth.

As far as active "stealthing up", a phrase used by pilots, conceivably that could mean any number of different things.

For instance: turning off transponders, retracting or electronically damping antennae or other communication devices (electromagnetic receivers can scatter EM radiation as well), turning on various ECM, doing things with the engine to reduce infrared, turning on anti-contrail devices or chemical injections, or even putting aerodynamic control surfaces in configurations for minimum cross section.

Oh, just remembered.

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned before somewhere the B-2 may be charging the air around the uppersurface as a means of boundary layer control (i.e. reduce seperation - particularly shock induced seperation).

Kilco: now that would be pretty advanced.

But would the benefit be stealth, or more aerodynamic, e.g. offering lower cruise drag or wider flight envelope?

Purely aerodynamic.


Here are some pdfs dealing with it.

Boundary layer control with atmospheric plasma discharges


Control of shock-induced incipient separation in a Mach 4 flow using magnetohydrodynamics





Rest assured, if its in the public domain now as a research topic, it has been proprietary knowledge for some time.

Originally posted by kilcoo316

Originally posted by mbkennel
But would the benefit be stealth, or more aerodynamic

Purely aerodynamic.

Maybe not! Yes, in a direct sense, it's purely about aerodynamics. However, remember radar can also be tuned to pick up varieations in air flow and density. Why do you think they use it to help predict weather?

Given that, is it really beyond logic to think that radar attuned to measure air currents couldn't be used to try to find the aerodynamic disturbance created by an aircrft in flight? (If I could come up whith that, chances are someone else already has!

Tim

Note: The Quote in the Quote is stricly to help readers understand what I'm trying to address with my post

Originally posted by Low Orbit
Many have told me that it's just the B2 passing through condensation or through the sound barrier, I still believe that there is more to it.

The cloud is a Prandtl-Glauert Condensation Cloud. Its not to do with the B-2 passing through some condensation and its definately not to do with going through the sound barrier since the B-2 is strictly subsonic!

When planes fly through air they create shock waves, particularly some shapes of aircraft. This changes the pressure of the air and therefore the amount of water vapour that can be carried by the air. The cloud you are seeing is water condensing in the air. IT IS NOT ACTIVE STEALTH.

I was flying in a turboprop yesterday and saw a similar effect on take off so unless de haviland have started delivering dashs with active stealth I think you are reading more into a cloud than is neccesary.

Originally posted by Ghost01
Maybe not! Yes, in a direct sense, it's purely about aerodynamics. However, remember radar can also be tuned to pick up varieations in air flow and density. Why do you think they use it to help predict weather?

Given that, is it really beyond logic to think that radar attuned to measure air currents couldn't be used to try to find the aerodynamic disturbance created by an aircrft in flight? (If I could come up whith that, chances are someone else already has!

Tim

Nah - the boundary layer control will not reduce the strength of the two wingtip vortices [which is where the larger scale turbulence is concentrated]. It will reduce the form drag over the body, and reduce the boundary layer wake behind the wing.


I've said elsewhere, whenever computers are strong enough [which could be in a few years if AMD can pull off what they are talking about] radar will be able to pick up the two vortices left by all aircraft [but particularly military aircraft by dint of their low aspect ratios] - stealth is gone, and gone for good.

[edit on 19/12/06 by kilcoo316]

AMD makes processors for military applications?

Right now, the most powerful super computer I believe is the Craig used for weather mapping. I don't think AMD makes super computers and in 10-20 years computer technology will have evolved to the point that a harddrive has more memory than the human brain. The world is shrinking. Every six months is a new component upgrade for computers, new technology is coming out all the time.

As for military applications, I think they would be using more powerful and applicable agents than AMD or Intel.

Shattered OUT...

Actually for single threads you can't get much better than modern PC-level microprocessors.

Really---they are quite advanced.

Supercomputer makers put their efforts into interconnects and very fast inter-processor transfers which are not standard PC technology. This enables parallel processing.

But if you have a single threaded program in a single memory space, you will not do better on any known computer than the top of the line Intel or AMD maxed out with maximum cache and clock speed.

The question about stealth and detecting the turbulent vortices is whether it is good enough to actually be useful for targeting missiles.

It may be that ground-based radar with high-end computing will know that "yes a something is out there" but it may not be good enough to shoot it down.

The missile itself would have to have that ability which could be doubtful.

Also, the ground-based radar would necessarily have to be emitting lots of power, and that makes it a target.

The real question here is, what kind of a work load will be impressed upon the micropressors?

Active Stealth? Sounds like a job up to super computers to me, or atleast something more capable than a microprocessor.

Shattered OUT...

Originally posted by ShatteredSkies
Active Stealth? Sounds like a job up to super computers to me, or atleast something more capable than a microprocessor.

Shattered OUT...

Good point! However, that brings up the question exactally how much computing power is built into the B-2 Spirit?

I don't have that answer.

Tim

Originally posted by ShatteredSkies
AMD makes processors for military applications?

Nope, but their roadmap for CPU development will bring the graphics accelerator onto the same die as the CPU itself, and it will be able to exploit the FLOPS performance inherent to graphics processing units.

Some of you may be surprised to know that current GPUs can perform 10 times the FLOPS of even the best CPUs.

The future is multi-core, but not homogenous multi-core.



As for targetting aircraft, the vorticity is at its strongest immediately downstream the wing, but the vortex expands and dissipates downstream. Its only a question of algorithms to calculate the aircraft's exact location.

The radar doesn't have to get it right to the nearest metre, 500m/1km would do. Once that close a conventional onboard seeker should be able to get a lock - stealth or no stealth.