Death of stealth technology

Apparently some German company has a paint that absorbs radar.

gizmodo.com...

>>A German inventor has developed a paint called AR 1 that can hide a vehicle from radar, and most importantly, "all militarily relevant frequencies." How it works is unclear, though one test researcher proposes it's either by reflecting radar waves in a pattern so they cancel one another out, or by utilizing microscopic magnets to absorb radar radiation. And no, it won't get you out of speeding tickets.

We spent how many billions on stealth technology

radar absorbing paints have been around for 60 years, and how does that equal "the death of stealth"?

Radar absorbing paints refract the micro waves in their internal stucture.

Absolutley nothing new

I guess if the radar is absorbed or refracted thus having no reflection back to the source then there is no need for stealth fighter and bomber- any aircraft painted with this would theoretically have a radar cross section of a bird..........But I bet in practice it is not that good - otherwise we could get it-paint our cars and no more speeding tickets!

It got press on Defense Tech website so it most not be a hoax.

reply to post by BlackProjects


It doesnt work like that, the absorbant coatings only amount to a very small percentage of the reduction of cros section, 5%
design elements and materials are far more important than the coating.

Originally posted by BlackProjects
I guess if the radar is absorbed or refracted thus having no reflection back to the source then there is no need for stealth fighter and bomber- any aircraft painted with this would theoretically have a radar cross section of a bird..........But I bet in practice it is not that good - otherwise we could get it-paint our cars and no more speeding tickets!

It got press on Defense Tech website so it most not be a hoax.

The stealth planes that the USA uses are coated with radar absorbing paint. They still need to have the other aspects. The only thing to fear from this story is that other nations are starting to figure out stealth as well and that could erase the huge advantage of stealth the USA holds over others currently. It means quite the opposite of the "death" of stealth. It means others will become able to incorporate stealth and everybody will use it.

I was aware that they are coated with radar absorbing paint(some say it is radioactive or was at a certain time). I do not doubt that this german paint is not all the article implies and that it alone is not shall we say the end of the story..but again what if it is ..same general discussion applies to plasma stealth of which Russians claim they have no which absorbs radar and thus makes any aircraft stealthy.

Thanks for all for reassuring me that this article is likely full of crap

I was aware that they are coated with radar absorbing paint(some say it is radioactive or was at a certain time). I do not doubt that this german paint is not all the article implies and that it alone is not shall we say the end of the story..but again what if it is ..same general discussion applies to plasma stealth of which Russians claim they have no which absorbs radar and thus makes any aircraft stealthy.

Thanks for all for reassuring me that this article is likely full of crap

No such thing as radar absorbing paint. The trick to F117 and F22 radar "invisibility" is reentrant triangles. Their paint does nothing, otherwise dont you think they would have the same colour? BTW Adding an additive colorant would change the properties of the paint.

The real -death of radar- would be the active radar absorption sheath, or ARAS for short. It is a Ruso-Chinese technology that involves running a plasma over the skin of the aircraft thus absorbing all radar thrown at it.

The only downside is that the cloaked plane is visible to IR whenever it 'dumps' excess plasma due to energy buildup in the plasma sheath. You see even at low freq, radar still carries some energy with each pulse and absorbing millions of pulses during a mission overloads the heat sink and excess heat is dumped along with the entire plasma net. This makes the aircraft visible to sophisticated radar and IR for about 350-ish seconds (the time window is bigger at higher speeds). Fortunately this may only look like a glitch on the screen, but the technology still has other bugs.

For example, it is hard to figure out how to keep the plasma continualy around the aircraft during high acceleration (g) maneovres. It can be kept on if the plane follows a straight line, but a turn actually bleeds off the energy and drops the cloak until it can be re-initialized again.

Another bug is that low atmospheric friction causes the cloack to drop so it can be used only at high altitude.

ANOTHER bug is that rain messes it up too, and fog is even worse.

So you can only use it on dry, clear skies at high altitude without pulling high-g and it has to be dropped peridically to bleed off heat. Pretty unreliable but it is still experimental.

I dont think were going to see it on the skies until 2015 when it is to be tested on the Sukhoi 47 berkut in Russia.




For sources please refer to Doctor Anatoliy Koroteyev, the director of the Keldysh Research Center (FKA Scientific Research Institute for Thermal Processes) or download a still unclassified paper at this link:
rclsgi.eng.ohio-state.edu...

His project is called:"Analysis of the Power Budget and Stability of High-Pressure Nonequilibrium Air Plasmas".
This was introduced at the 31st Plasmadynamics and Lasers Conference, June 19-22 ,2000 Paper 00-2418.